Painkiller
by Smaointe Salach
Summary: Re-Upload! I'm Back! * Natasha Lemov is assaulted by a gang of thugs and rescued by a most unlikely antihero. As she descends into the complicated web of Bane's underworld, she discovers alongside the masked beast that pain can be harnessed and turned into power. * In-progress, will be completed soon.
1. In the Beginning Bane Created the Bunker

**In the Beginning,Bane Created the Bunker**

* * *

**A/N: ****Author's Note: As many of my former readers know, I was extremely sick with hyperemesis gravidarum and cholestasis during my pregnancy. I was pregnant from February to October of 2013, and I spent about half the pregnancy in the hospital and the other half with IVs in my arm and on bed rest before delivering my baby at 36 weeks via c-section! Phew. Anyway, now that that adventure is over and the adventure of mamahood has begun, I needed about 3 months to get back on my feet and get a routine settled before I felt comfortable re-uploading my works and getting back into writing. I hope you all forgive me and I hope you all look forward to reading new things from me half as much as I look forward to writing them in the very little free time I have as a stay-at-home mama. (Yes, this means that naptime = fanfic writing... hehehe). Thank you all so much for your support. I love you dearly.**

**This story is based on the ****_Dark Knight Rises_**** universe. I really found some room to sympathize a bit with Bane, or at least humanize him, and wanted to explore his character a bit. This story takes place about a year before ****_TDKR_****. Of course, Bane's lines are best imagined with that splendid voice of his in your head, and reviews of this story are appreciated more than you know. Thank you for reading and please enjoy.**

Natasha loved shopping at the farmers' market in Gotham, even though the goods came from well outside the city and the market was often crowded. It was an eclectic atmosphere, with musicians and artists as well as rural area farmers selling their wares. This week, Natasha had bought zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, and onions. She was going to sauté them together to make pasta primavera for dinner. Her stomach rumbled at the thought.

She cut through the alleyways like a cat, knowing that it wasn't exactly the safest way home for a young woman alone, but also knowing it to be the quickest way back to her studio apartment. Since graduating from Gotham Dominican University with a degree in journalism, she'd been living the high life, all right… Natasha rolled her eyes sarcastically at her little internal joke. She lived in a tiny studio apartment and squeaked by an existence as a freelance writer among four dailies in the city.

Just as Natasha was contemplating her dismal financial situation, she entered the longest, darkest alley en route to her old brick apartment building. Seconds after she entered the alley, Natasha realized she was being followed. She heard the footsteps, but no voices, of at least four individuals behind her. She contemplated her options. She could run. She could keep walking calmly and go back out to the main streets.

She was jumped before she had a chance to decide. Tackled fiercely from behind, Natasha landed with a thud on the pavement, instantly scraping knees and elbows bared by her short cotton dress. Then she felt a wallop to her gut as she was kicked, and heard vicious laughter. Natasha tried to scream but heard only a pathetic, hoarse wail emerge from her lips.

"Help, somebody, please," she moaned as she felt the skirt of her dress being hiked up above her waist. And then there was another blow to her head, and everything was black and gone.

When Natasha managed to awaken, she tried to open her eyes but only managed to crack one. The other seemed to be swollen shut. She breathed in air and felt an enormous tug of pain in her right ribs. She moved her fingers and toes to see if she was paralyzed, and sighed with relief when they twitched. Her fingers coursed over the red gingham fabric of her dress. Oh, Lord… they'd been hiking up her dress when she'd passed out. Had they…

Natasha felt a lone tear squeeze out her swollen eye and trail down her cheek at the thought. She gasped painfully in surprise when a rough finger swiped the tear away. She managed to turn her head, though her neck was hurting, and grasped with astonishment that she was in a concrete chamber, and that a strange man (hadn't there been enough of those today?) was crouching before her. Most oddly of all, he had some sort of bizarre contraption strapped to his face, like a mask with tentacles through which he seemed to be breathing. The man was large and hulking, bald and muscular in a military-grade flak jacket and cargo pants, the hand at the end of the thick arm poised to swipe away another tear.

There were any number of questions Natasha might reasonably ask in that moment, like, 'Where am I?' or 'Who are you?' or, most sensibly, 'What the hell is on your face?' But instead she said,

"Did they rape me?"

"No," The masked man answered simply, his voice mechanical and processed through the mask. In one word, Natasha heard the twinge of a foreign accent, as well.

"Why am I not in a hospital?"

The stranger sighed heavily, an odd sound coming through his mask. "There are four men dead because of what happened up there," he explained. "And do I look like I can show up at a hospital?"

Natasha furrowed her brow. She wanted to shake her head no, but it seemed like a rhetorical question.

"Besides," the man continued, "The best they'd do for your injuries is give you a bed and painkillers, and I can do that for you here."

His voice had a peculiar lilt to it that made Natasha nervous for a reason she couldn't pinpoint. She looked anxiously around the concrete chamber. The eerie fluorescent glow let her know she was underground. This place seemed secret, like its apparently secretive owner.

"You're not going to let me go, are you?" Natasha asked suddenly.

"Not for right now, no," the stranger answered.

Natasha nodded slowly, the gravity of the situation sinking in. "Do you often go around saving women and then taking them captive?" She looked the man in his bright eyes.

They glinted abruptly, and Natasha knew he was smiling. "I am no hero," he answered.

"Well, like it or not, today, you're _my_ hero," Natasha informed him matter-of-factly, settling back onto her pillow. She realized she was in a real bed, a very comfortable bed in which she was propped up by pillows, and that there was an IV in her arm. She stared at the tube flowing into the crook of her elbow in horror.

"It's just a saline drip and anesthetic. Triggered when you woke up. It should kick in soon, and then you won't have any pain," he told her.

As Natasha processed his words, her mind fuzzy, she felt a cool touch on the eye that was swollen shut. She rolled her good eye to the right to see that the masked man was holding an ice pack to her head. His other hand rested on the edge of the bed, and Natasha saw that his knuckles were completely chewed up and that his fingers and the back of his hand were bruised and distended. He'd clearly fought off Natasha's attackers with his bare fists. She reached impulsively for his hand and took it in her own.

"You're injured," she noted worriedly, like a mother hen.

"Not like you," he answered. He did not withdraw his hand. Natasha tutted again and asked,

"Doesn't it hurt?"

His eyes crinkled then, and he laughed. He took the hand that had been holding the ice pack and gestured up to the nodules around his mask.

"That's what this is for," he said jovially. "No pain. You hadn't asked yet why I wore the mask."

"It seemed rude," she said.

He chuckled. "You haven't asked my name, either," he noted.

"Nor you mine," she shot back.

The masked man reached in his back pocket and pulled out Natasha's wallet. He plopped it on the bed beside her. "Nice to meet you, Natasha Lemov," he said. "My name is Bane. I would shake your hand, but I'm already holding it."

Natasha looked down at where she was gingerly holding Bane's hand and snatched her fingers back like she was touching something hot. He sighed heavily and reached for her hand again, drawing her palm back with his rough fingertips.

Natasha followed his motions with her eyes, then glanced up into his bright gaze.  
"How is your pain?" Bane asked, after clearing his throat rather awkwardly.  
"Fading. Why did you save me?"  
"It was the right thing to do," Bane answered after a pause in which he seemed to be considering his answer.  
Natasha cocked her head and furrowed her brow. Bane did not seem like the kind of man who did something because it was "the right thing to do."  
"Because you reminded me of a girl who was very special to me," Bane admitted, "and because men once beat me, too, which is why I have this mask."  
"It's anesthetic, then... you feel no pain?"  
"No, none," Bane clarified.  
"Can you feel nothing?" Natasha asked. She spontaneously raised Bane's hand to her lips, kissing the backs of his fingers gently. "Can you not feel this?"  
Even through the mask, Natasha heard the distinctive sound of breath being sucked in, then held.  
"It... it only operates on pain receptors," Bane informed her nervously. "I felt that." He pulled his hand away and hoisted himself to his feet. "Why are you flirting with me?" he demanded, his voice now angry and harsh and terrifying.  
Natasha looked confused. "I - Bane, I'm not trying to... I'm sorry. I must have a concussion. Please don't hurt me," she pleaded, tears coming to her eyes.

Bane looked as confused as Natasha, shaking his head and crossing his thick arms across his flak jacket.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said rather self-consciously. "Believe it or not, you're safer here than you are up there." He pointed a finger vertically and raised his eyes skyward. Natasha knew he was referencing Gotham, and that only confirmed her suspicions that the concrete chamber in which this conversation was taking place was situated underground.

Natasha looked at the ceiling as if it would suddenly become a window to the city above so that she could figure out where she was.

"I'll leave you alone now, since I frighten you," Bane said, his filtered voice shaded with resentment.

Before Natasha could protest, he turned to his left and she heard a few rapid boot steps on the polished concrete ground. Then there was a mechanical scanning noise and a few beeps, and the sound of a door unlocking loudly behind Natasha. She heard it open and shut.

"Bane?" she said quietly, but there was no answer.

She was alone in the room until she noticed the plastic bag on her IV tower nearing vacuity. Then the door behind her unlocked loudly again and opened. Natasha's heart fluttered for a reason she couldn't explain as she mused whether it was Bane entering the room again. But when the figure who entered came into view, it was a woman of perhaps thirty-five years of age, clad in an elegant summer dress.

She was beautiful; her dark brown hair was styled in retro waves and her chestnut eyes were rimmed with dark shadow. She was tall and lean and wore a strand of lovely pearls around her swan-like neck. Natasha contrasted the woman's elegance with her own body.

Natasha was petite and twiggy. She, like this woman, had dark brown hair, but hers flowed long and straight. Her face was dusted with freckles, and she had wide emerald green eyes. Her girlish figure belied her age of twenty-five years. Natasha found the woman who had entered the chamber to be far more beautiful than she perceived herself to be, and she squirmed self-consciously. Was this the girl who Bane referenced?

She carried a full IV bag and a syringe in her hands and strode confidently to Natasha's bedside. She looked down at Natasha with a little smile and said nothing as she set to work replacing to saline solution and injecting more anesthetic into the IV drip.

"Are you a nurse?" Natasha asked, marveling at the ease with which the woman carried out her task.

"No," she answered. "I've been helping Bane with his mask for a long time." Her voice was accented even more thickly than Bane's, but Natasha thought it only added to her elegance.

"What's your name?" Natasha asked.

"I'm Talia," she answered, smiling again. Natasha wondered if this wasn't why Bane was upset about her alleged flirtation – was this his girlfriend, his wife?

"Is Bane your husband?" Natasha asked boldly, and Talia laughed uproariously.

"No!" she exclaimed. "He's a friend. More of a father figure than anything else. Certainly not a love interest." She scoffed and shuddered as if disgusted by the idea.

"Why is he keeping me here?"

"Well, he wasn't sure if you'd had a look at him or not before you lost consciousness up there, and he couldn't risk that." Talia finished with the IV and turned to the bed, shrugging.

"I didn't see him."

"Well, you have now," Talia reasoned.

"So I know too much?" Natasha asked.

"That's about right," Talia answered simply. "Who knows… maybe some Stockholm Syndrome will set in and you'll begin to like your captors." She chuckled and raised her eyebrows.

Natasha furrowed her brows angrily. "I want to go home. Let me talk to Bane."

"He's busy. Very busy. He's got other things to worry about besides you, you know."

"Tell him to make time for me." Natasha managed to clasp her hands together petulantly over her stomach.

Talia nodded in concession, raising her eyebrows again. "You must be hungry."

"How long was I out?"

"Many hours. I'll have someone bring you some food. I've got to go. I'm busy, too." With that, Talia abruptly turned and exited the room the same way that Bane had done. Natasha pondered that people around here didn't much bother with greetings or goodbyes, and that they often walked out in what seemed like the middle of a conversation.

Once again, Natasha was alone, and as the anesthetic kicked in again, she grew tired. Despite the brightness of the fluorescent light, she drifted off to sleep. She was awakened, she didn't know how much later, by the loud click of the door unlocking behind her.

_Food,_ Natasha thought gleefully as her stomach rumbled. She was shocked when the door shut and she heard the boot steps she'd heard earlier and saw Bane's imposing figure stride around the corner of the bed.

He looked almost comical, carrying a tray of food, because it looked abnormally small in his monstrous hands. And of course, even if he had been smiling pleasantly in salutation at Natasha, she'd never have known because of the frightening mask covering the majority of his face. However, considering the terms on which he'd left last, Natasha figured he was not smiling at her.

"Hello," Natasha said quietly, propping herself up on the pillows to more of a sitting position.

"I have brought you sustenance," Bane informed her, setting the tray down gently on her lap. Natasha looked down to see a medley of sautéed vegetables, cous cous, and baklava. How they'd known she was a vegetarian, she had no idea.

"Thank you," she murmured, and began eating with haste. She didn't even notice Bane pull up an unseen folding chair to the bedside and sit himself down, placing his elbows on his knees and resting his interlocked fists at the base of his mask.

He sat silently, watching her eat delicately but quickly. She ate almost all the food in minutes, then tipped her head back, closed her eyes, and sighed gratefully. She felt the tray slip horizontally off her lap, and when she glanced back down, it was gone, and Bane was resuming his position.

"I know you want to leave. In time, you will change your mind," he said abruptly.

Natasha raised an eyebrow skeptically. "I will? How will _that_ happen?"

"I can be a very convincing man, in addition to being frightening," Bane enlightened her. "But you're not the kind of person I like to frighten."

She chuckled then and shook her head, realizing that arguing with him would be futile.

"I am _not_ Talia's husband, or anything like it," he clarified, seemingly out of nowhere.

"So she told me," Natasha nodded, curious as to why Bane felt the need to stress that. They were silent for a moment then, as neither of them seemed to know quite what to say or in what direction to take the conversation. Natasha cleared her throat and said gently, "Bane, I owe you a lot for saving my life. I know that. I owe you my life. But if there is _anything_ I can do to convince you to let me go home, I will do it. _Anything."_

Bane's eyebrows shot up and he straightened his spine, lowering his hands to his knees. "You don't have to repay me, Natasha."

"But I can't go home?"

"No."

"Please!" Natasha began to sob softly. "I'm scared here."

"Why?" Bane demanded.

"Look around!" Natasha nearly shouted. "I'm in a concrete box underground all by myself!"

"You're not alone right now," Bane reasoned calmly.

"Right, I'm alone in a room with a man, hours after being attacked by men," Natasha scoffed.

Bane stared at her silently and blinked.

Natasha shifted uncomfortably. "What?" she asked defensively.

"Two things." Bane held up two fingers. "First of all, you assume that any man alone in a room with you has intentions of attacking you in some way, which is patently unfair to half the human population. Second… why didn't you mention the mask?"

Natasha shook her head in confusion.

"You said, 'I'm alone in a room with a man.' Why not, 'I'm alone in a room with a horrible masked man,' or, 'I'm alone in a room with a man with a scary mask on his wretched face'?"

Natasha looked down at her hands. "Because," she began, "To me, you're just the man who saved my life and is being stubborn about letting me go home. Besides, I look the worse between us right now."

"I know what you look like normally. There's a little thing called Facebook. And you're… beautiful…" The parts of Bane's cheeks that were exposed reddened deeply and he stood from his chair, turning quickly away from the bed. He put his left hand on his hip and used his right to scratch his bald scalp thoughtfully.

Natasha felt her good eye widen. Was _this_ why he'd been upset with her, then, when he'd thought she was flirting with him - because he found her attractive, at least in her healthy state? Maybe, Natasha reasoned, just maybe, this hulk of a man couldn't fathom weakening himself by wanting a woman. She thought of thanking him for his compliment, for calling her beautiful, but it seemed an unnecessary accessory to his fretting. Natasha felt a pit of guilt roil her gut. Why, she did not know. This man seemed beyond pity, and yet, that was precisely what she felt.

"Would you feel better," Bane began, still facing away from Natasha, "if I brought in a woman to stay with you?"

"No," Natasha answered softly. "I'll be fine."

Bane turned around to face her, his eyes sad and his arms crossed back over his flak jacket. "You can come with me. Then you won't be alone. But I suppose I'm a _man_…" The glint in Bane's eyes turned defiant as his hands slithered to unlace themselves and slide up his vest to grip the jacket's straps.

"Where are we going?" Natasha asked, surprising herself by implicitly agreeing to leave the concrete chamber with Bane.

"To a far more comfortable room than this," he answered, his motorized voice sounding satisfied.

With that, he stepped up to Natasha's IV and pulled apart the connection so that she was no longer attached to the bag or the drip. She now simply had a needle and a short tube emerging from her arm. Distantly, Natasha thought that now there was no anesthetic flowing into her veins, and that soon enough her pain would return. Looking up at Bane as if to silently communicate this concern, she was relieved when she saw him extract a white pill from his pocket. He held it up.

"You can have this instead," he said, "when I get you some water."

Wondering if it was a date-rape drug or simply poison, Natasha felt her stomach flutter with fear. But he'd promised that it was just anesthetic in her IV, and that seemed true enough. Did she trust Bane? Was that not the most idiotic thing she'd ever done?

Before she could second-guess herself, Natasha felt the thin blanket atop her being peeled back and glanced down to see Bane snake his right arm under her knees and knife his left arm between her back and the pillows. She felt herself being lifted, though she neither heard nor saw any sign whatsoever of exertion from Bane. Still, she felt patently uncomfortable cradled in his arms. It was too close, she thought, too close for comfort to a man so intimidating. His arms were strong, his hold unwavering, and yet Natasha felt incredibly insecure.

"I can walk," she insisted, as Bane stood upright. She did not turn her face to the right to look at him as she spoke; her eyes would have been mere inches from his mask and, more terrifyingly, from his own eyes.

"No, you can't," he countered, his mechanical voice brassy in Natasha's ear.

"I can."

"Show me, then," Bane demanded, gently setting Natasha on her feet. He held his hands protectively next to her body, which proved to be the right thing to do. Natasha felt abruptly light-headed and dizzy upon her own legs, and the idea of traversing the room made her nauseous. She swayed on her feet, right into Bane's arms, and heard him chuckle unsympathetically. "I hate to say 'I told you so,'" he said sarcastically.

Natasha crumpled her brow angrily as she felt herself being hoisted back into a cradled position. This time, instead of turning away from Bane and wishing he were not holding her, she nestled her head against his shoulder and laced her arms around his ridiculously thick neck. It was like a tree trunk, she thought with a silent giggle.

She shut her good eye and relaxed her body, trying to feel secure in his arms. She felt her hands tremble against the skin of his neck, though from what emotion, she could not say. She cracked open her eye and felt the swollen one open just a peek, and looked up. All she could see was the mask, obscuring the rest of his face.

Natasha was suddenly churned with sympathy and pity. He'd told her why he had the mask – because he'd been beaten; because he had pain. Would she be like him someday? Bitter and rough around the edges to say the least, cold in word and voice, and distrustful? Would she need something like his mask, or would her pain fade as her wounds healed? Why hadn't his pain faded with time? Why was he still in need of the mask? Was he an addict to the anesthesia, or was he really in constant pain? Who would help him?

Impulsively, needing to see his aquamarine eyes, Natasha reached up and placed her left hand on the smooth solid strap leading from Bane's jaw to the back of his head. She pulled diagonally down so that Bane was looking at her, and saw the surprise in his eyes. She heard him breathing in and out of the mask; the sound resembled a person on a respirator in a hospital. Bane's eyes met Natasha's, his fraught with disbelief at her audaciousness, at her bold action of actually touching his apparatus.

"I want to help you," she murmured, so quietly that she wasn't sure whether or not Bane heard her.

He did.

"Help _me_?" he scoffed incredulously. "You can't even walk. You're the one that needs help." Natasha opened her mouth to speak again, but Bane silenced her. "I know what you're thinking, and you might as well stop," he insisted, his voice sharp. "I do not need help, or pity, or anything like it. I don't need it, and I don't want it."

With that, he turned around and actually let go of Natasha with one hand so that he was only holding her in one arm, and placed his thumb on a print scanner beside the door. When it successfully read his print, he pushed the door open with his back, and strode out into a dimly lit concrete hallway. Surprisingly, he only walked about twenty feet down the very long passageway before entering a room on the right. This room was not as obnoxiously fluorescent as Natasha's chamber had been, and it was decorated in a more homey fashion.

There was a long, dark brown leather couch against one wall, and a low queen-sized bed with red brocade bedding. Natasha nearly laughed when she saw the large bookshelf against the opposite wall, stocked with volumes by Dickens, Tolstoy, and Hugo. Instead of laughing, though, she realized that Bane was far more classically educated than she had given him credit for – though she barely knew him, she reminded herself.

Natasha initially thought Bane might lay her down on the couch, because she thought that this was probably _his_ bed. She was surprised, therefore, when he peeled back the brocade blanket on one side of the bed and neatly tucked Natasha into it.

"I will sleep on the couch," he said, answering her unasked question.

"What time is it?"

"One o'clock in the morning," Bane replied.

"I was asleep before you came with food," Natasha told him.

"Well, this will put you back to sleep," he said, his eyes crinkling. He extracted the white pill again, this time reaching for a clear plastic bottle of water beside the couch. He handed her the pill and the bottle. Natasha hesitated.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Vicodin," Bane answered simply. "Wouldn't do anything at all for me, but they're cheap to get on the street, and it should help you."

Natasha nodded and popped the pill. She lay back on the stack of pillows as Bane pulled a laptop out of a bag and sat down with it on the couch.

"How do you get Internet access down here?" Natasha asked curiously, gesturing around the diffusely lit, windowless concrete cube.

"I leave that to my technician friends," Bane said, staring intently at the computer screen. "We have wireless."

Natasha wanted to ask Bane what he was doing on the computer, but he seemed like the kind of man who had secret business to conduct, so she kept her mouth shut. She snuggled into the blankets and pillows and waited for sleep to come. The bed smelled like Bane – like leather and wood. She drifted off to sleep for a few minutes until she was roused by the sound of Bane putting his computer away and kicking off his boots.

Natasha stayed still but cracked her eyes and watched Bane. He shucked his flak jacket so that he was wearing a white tank undershirt and his cargo pants. Without the flak jacket, Bane's back muscles, pectorals, and abdominals were more evident, though they were thick and soft. Natasha raised her eyebrows as Bane adjusted the straps on his mask. He was a hulking mass of a man. That was certain. What woman could resist at least the craving to trace her fingers over that swelling back, that solid chest, that…

_Stop it,_ Natasha scolded herself. _He's your abductor, not your love interest._ She sucked in breath and held it, and squeezed her eyes shut hard, concentrating on shoving away the unclean thoughts wracking her brain.

When she cracked open her eyes again, she saw Bane lying lengthwise on the couch, looking completely ridiculous. He was ludicrously large for the couch. He looked like he would roll off of it at any moment, and his feet extended over the arm. He had no pillow or blanket. Natasha sighed and opened her eyes.

"Bane, you can't sleep on the couch. You don't fit."

"I have slept in far worse conditions than this, believe you me," Bane insisted, shutting his eyes and tucking his hands behind his head, under the straps of his mask.

"Please take the bed. I will sleep there," Natasha pleaded with him.

"No. That is an absurd proposition," Bane countered.

"If I were back in my other room, you'd have your own bed," Natasha argued, sitting up shakily in the bed.

"If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be underground at all."

"Oh, yes, I would be," Natasha nodded, "in a grave."

Bane rotated his head to face Natasha. His eyes shone a deep turquoise. "What would you have me do? Right this minute?" he clarified. "Be realistic, Ms. Lemov."

Natasha patted the bed beside her. "I'll be asleep soon," she said quickly. "I won't bother you."

"_Bother_ me? Not in the way you're thinking," Bane laughed.

Natasha's cheeks flushed. She wordlessly slithered back to a prone position and shut her eyes. She sighed heavily, then sucked in her sigh when she felt movement in the bed beside her.

She didn't move or speak, and Bane said nothing, either, as he slipped between the sheets next to her. The only sound in the room was the hiss of Bane's breathing through the mask.

After what seemed like an eternity of quiet and stillness, with only the ebb and flow of Bane's breath to break the silence, Natasha rotated in her horizontal position to face him. He was lying on his back, his hands crossed over his stomach, staring straight up at the ceiling.

She wanted so badly to reach out and touch him. She wanted to extend her fingers and trail them from his neck down over his chest. She pictured doing it, heard the acceleration of his breath through the mask in her mind as her lithe little digits traced the neckline of his undershirt. She wanted to do it so badly that it triggered an involuntary physical reaction in her. She felt a warmth where she didn't particularly want to right this minute, felt her nipples go hard, felt her cheeks blush pink. Her own breath hastened against her will. Almost involuntarily, she watched as her actual hand reached out and pressed itself flat against the top of Bane's chest.

He didn't look at her when she touched him. He kept staring at the ceiling, but his chest heaved higher and compressed lower as his breath deepened. This only egged Natasha on. She bent her fingers and flexed them again, stroking Bane's smooth skin. She began a path down his chest and abdomen, moving tortuously slowly.

Bane shut his eyes as Natasha watched him, neither of them saying anything yet. Bane's eyes squeezed more tightly shut as Natasha's fingers reached the base of his stomach, flitting tentatively over the top of the waistband of his cargo pants before drifting back to her side of the bed.

Bane's hand moved more quickly than Natasha would have thought possible to seize her wrist, and he finally turned his head to look at her with a fiercely locked gaze.

"Are you really going to stop right there?" he asked, panting slightly.

"I'm not going to have sex with you, Bane," Natasha informed him pointedly, "for many more reasons besides the fact that I am not in the best physical shape for it at this particular time."

"Nobody's naked… right now," Bane noted, his eyes glinting, "but you knew exactly what you were doing. You were doing it on purpose. You were trying to make _this_ happen, weren't you?"

He still held her wrist in his hefty hand, and he dragged it back over to where it had been, but a few inches lower. He planted Natasha's fingers on the large, hard bulge in his pants, and Natasha gasped in surprise.

"Amazed, are we?" Bane asked tauntingly. "Let me enlighten you, little girl. When a woman touches a man the way _you_ were doing – on purpose – _this_ is what happens." He smashed her hand hard against the lump so that she could feel the exact outline of his erect shaft.

Natasha snatched her hand back, and Bane let her go. She was incredibly conflicted. She knew, in her brain, that she should hate this man for keeping her here, that she should fear him. But in her heart, she knew that he had saved her life, that he'd been relatively kind to her, and that she found him incredibly attractive despite the mask.

Now she was lying in bed with him, less than a day after meeting him. Worse than that, she'd just caressed him and had her hand planted on the erection she'd caused. Now what did she do? She couldn't leave. Literally, she could not leave. She might as well go all in, she told herself. Who knew? Maybe she would like it as much as her little fantasy had hinted she would.

She looked Bane in the eye and assumed the most seductive look she could muster with her injuries.

"I'm sorry," she murmured.

"You're not," he countered in his processed voice.

"You're right. I'm not, but you're a big man, and if you fought off my attackers, you can fight off me."

Bane narrowed his eyes. "Why would I want to do that?"

Natasha gave him a crooked smile and propped herself up on her elbow. She wordlessly tossed an arm across Bane's chest and lowered her head to his exposed neck. She began kissing him there, nipping and sucking gently and stroking his flesh with her tongue.

The sound of his groan filtered through the mask was nothing but a turn-on for Natasha. She coursed her hand up his cheek, over the straps of his mask, and down over his neck and thick, soft back.

"Harder, Natasha," Bane panted, longing in his voice. He took his strong hand and put it on the back of Natasha's head, on her silky hair, and pushed her face harder into his neck, urging her to be rougher with him.

Natasha reasoned that with his powerful anesthetic, Bane would need stronger stimuli to trigger a normal reaction. She nibbled harder at his skin and thrust her tongue harder against him. She sucked firmly on his neck, knowing she was probably leaving marks and not caring at all. Her hand was still coursing around Bane's back, but when he rolled from his side, pulling her with him, she moved her hand and held it up, not knowing what to do with it.

He helped her with that gladly, guiding her hand to the waistband of his pants. Natasha wrenched herself away from his neck to use both hands to unbutton and unzip the cargo pants. She was panting even harder than Bane now, and she pondered whether it might not be possible that she was even more turned on than he seemed to be. The warm buzzing in her body grew stronger, and the flush spread from her cheeks.

She pulled him free from the confines of clothing. His member was thick and long and throbbing, bigger than any she'd seen before. Of course he was huge, Natasha thought with a chuckle. He would be, wouldn't he, being not only a physically large man, but a psychologically imposing one, as well?

She could use her hands, she thought, but they were dry and there would be too much friction. She could feel that she was plenty lubricated in her nether regions, but that would be taking things beyond control. Instead, she propped herself onto her knees and bent to position her face over the prone Bane. She lowered her mouth and took him in it, slipping his length into her throat without even asking him if that was an acceptable thing to do.

Realizing she'd acted brashly, Natasha pulled him out of her mouth and glanced up at him, wordlessly asking him for permission.

"Natasha," he muttered, his voice staccato to make a point as he stared blankly up at the ceiling, "do not stop."

So she resumed her task, pulling and pushing him in and out of her mouth as if she were using her tongue and lips to make love to him. She used her hand to help, trailing her mouth for extra contact and swirling her fingers around his slick shaft. She paused at the top to play with the sensitive tip, then plunged him back deep into her throat. Bane made a visceral noise in reaction to that, and clutched at the sheets with his powerful hands. His chest heaved up and down so deeply and rapidly that Natasha worried about him hyperventilating.

Bane tried to pull Natasha's head off of him, but he did it so gently that she knew it was because he was nearing release and didn't want her to have to swallow it. She resolutely kept him in her mouth and only sped up her ministrations, triggering a roar from Bane when he climaxed and his seed sprayed in hot streams into Natasha's throat.

She swallowed hard to get it all down, gagging a bit on its extreme bitterness and tang, and licked him clean. Bane shuddered on the sheets and took a deep breath, turning his head toward Natasha.

"Well, that was good," he said with a chuckle. Natasha nodded. "For one of us," Bane finished. Natasha narrowed her eyes and wiped her lips with the back of her hand, shrugging and shaking her head. "I'm not finished with you," Bane told her, reaching over with his left hand and placing his palm on Natasha's breast.

"No?" Natasha asked timidly, leaning into his touch.

"Not quite." He snaked his hand under the blankets and beneath the hem of Natasha's red gingham dress. He yanked down her white cotton panties and pulled them over her backside, sliding them down her thighs.

Bane's hand trailed back up the inside of Natasha's leg, and she felt her breathing so shallow and rapid that she thought she might faint. He hovered over her, his chillingly intimidating mask just inches from her face, as his hand approached her clean-shaven lower region. As his calloused fingers met the steamy moistness there, and felt just how wet she was, Natasha heard a low laugh rumble from the mask.

"Apparently someone else enjoyed it, too," he noted, and Natasha felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. She was so blatantly turned on, so clearly aroused for him… it was excruciating. What was not painful was the feeling of his fingers twisting and meandering into her. _That_ was thrilling.

"Mmm…" Natasha arched her back and put her hands up, floundering a bit as she tried to get grounding.

"Hold on to me," Bane said, his voice snarled with excitement. Natasha wrapped her arms around his thick neck like she had when he'd carried her into this room. He continued plunging and torqueing fingers around inside of her while using his thumb to stroke her entrance. She was so slippery and lubricated that his fingers slid around easily.

Natasha moaned continuously and began thrashing her head from side to side. She felt her own hands collapse toward her as Bane lowered his head and torso to put his mask right beside Natasha's ear.

"I want to feel you tighten around my fingers, Natasha. I want to hear my name."

Natasha shivered at the sound of his speech fizzling through the mask.

"Bane," she whispered, her voice barely audible. She clenched her eyes shut as the word escaped her lips.

"Louder," he growled, twisting his fingers into her to punctuate his point.

"Bane!" Natasha distantly worried that, despite the thick concrete walls and thick metal door, someone would hear her crying the man's name. For some reason, though, she ultimately did not care. She wailed his name again and again as he relentlessly fingered her, his breath coming thick and heavy through the mask into her ear. As she gave him his wish and clenched metrically around his fingers, she nearly sobbed his name and let her arms fall from his neck. A tear squeezed from her swollen eye as she collapsed into the pillows, feeling his fingers slip out of her.

Natasha was exhausted and confused. Her body felt at once rigid and liquid, and trembled fiercely. Her mind reeled with bewilderment as she realized she'd just engaged in sexual activity with a man that she'd just met, had taken her captive, and was the most frightening figure she'd ever encountered. Had she lost her mind? Was she just traumatized by the experience of being attacked? What kind of woman underwent attempted rape and, less than twenty-four hours later, engaged in fellatio and digital penetration? Was she a complete harlot? Another few tears escaped her eyes as she wrestled with her scruples.

Bane, meanwhile, had climbed off of her and was lying on his back beside her. His eyes flicked over and saw the tears coursing down Natasha's porcelain skin. He sighed, his breath hissing between the manacles of his mask.

"I'm… sorry," he said, sounding unsure of whether or not an apology was necessary or appropriate. Natasha could tell Bane was most uncomfortable when he was not confident or in control of a situation, so she shook her head.

"No," she whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm just… bruised. Emotionally."

Bane rose off the bed, zipping and buttoning his pants, his eyes looking self-conscious.

"Perhaps," he muttered, "this was an inopportune occasion to do… that."

For a man so usually self-assured, cocky even, Bane sounded completely insecure in this moment. He fidgeted with the straps of his mask, turning away from the bed and stalking back to the couch. He reached for something beside the couch and stood back up, clutching a black zipper sweatshirt, which he put on over his white undershirt. Natasha narrowed her eyes, confused by his sudden urge to cover himself so modestly. She pulled up her underwear and slid back under the blankets, replacing a fallen strap of her dress to its rightful place on her shoulder. She watched as Bane took his laptop back out of its case and got back to work on it, sitting on the couch.

She was incredibly startled when there was a gentle knock on the solid metal door. She glanced up and saw Talia standing in an evening gown and full makeup at the entryway she'd opened. Horribly embarrassed by merely being in Bane's room, Natasha pulled the covers over her head so that her eyes could just barely peek out to see the space.

In response to Talia's knock, Bane's eyes flicked up from the glow of his computer screen. He held up a hand, indicating Talia should wait at the door. He set down his laptop on the couch and rose, walking straight for the door. He didn't let Talia in; he went out into the hallway to talk to her.

Although Talia and Bane stood just outside the door talking, Natasha couldn't hear a word they were saying. For all she knew, Bane was whispering, and he looked completely calm. Talia, though, was animated and upset, and seemed to be scolding Bane. That was bold, Natasha thought. She would never admonish Bane. It seemed like a dangerous thing to do.

Indeed, at one point, Bane grabbed Talia's shoulder so hard she winced, and Natasha wondered if she shouldn't look away. She was riveted, though, because Bane became suddenly more agitated and dynamic in his quiet speech. He seemed distraught. That was not good, Natasha thought, because she was stuck in this room. _His_ room. It seemed like a distinct possibility that he might come back into the room and start smashing and throwing things. Natasha looked around to assess what was breakable or heavy. There was a lamp that was illuminating the space, and its base was made of translucent red glass. Natasha flicked her eyes back to the argument out in the hallway and gasped. Bane and Talia were both staring right at her as they spoke.


	2. Extraordinarily Well-Trained

**Chapter 2: Extraordinarily Well-Trained**

* * *

Bane gesticulated angrily toward Natasha, turning his gaze back to Talia, who crossed her arms over her chest and planted her lips in a straight line while she stared through the doorway.

Natasha pulled the blankets back over her head and emerged, giving Talia and Bane a curious, nervous look. Bane met her eyes and flashed her a stone-faced look. Then he turned back to Talia and shook his head firmly, putting his hands up in front of him. He pointed down the hallway, and Talia petulantly swiveled on her heels, arms still crossed. She stalked away, out of Natasha's view, and Bane watched her go. After a few moments, he shook his head again, this time with evident frustration, and walked back through the open doorway. For a brief moment, Natasha wondered why, if they'd wanted a private conversation, Bane and Talia hadn't walked somewhere else – why they had stood right in the doorway. Unless, she pondered, this wasn't a secure room from the inside like her last room had been. Unless they thought that if left alone, she'd leave – escape.

Bane sighed heavily as he shut the door behind him. Natasha heard the loud _click_ of a lock as he shut the world, including Talia, out.

After a moment of silence in which Bane walked back to his laptop, Natasha asked cautiously, "Why did she just walk on in?"

"She usually has a certain degree of freedom around here," Bane told her. "I made it evident that the times have changed."

"Have they?"

"Are you going back to the other room?" Bane cocked his head curiously.

"I don't know. You tell me." Natasha stared directly at Bane's deep aqua eyes. Bane didn't answer. "So was that whole conversation about me, then?"

"More or less," Bane conceded. "Though I'm not willing to share the details."

"You don't seem like the type to kiss and tell," Natasha suggested with a sad little half smile.

"I'm not," Bane insisted. "But you are in my bed. And she could tell I'd been up to something."

"So she wasn't happy," Natasha deduced.

"No."

"Jealous?" Natasha pressed.

"Perhaps a bit. She's never liked when I… well, as you said, I don't kiss and tell. I don't kiss much at all." Bane tapped the mask with his index finger, and Natasha couldn't help but smile at his joke.

"Are you quite the womanizer, Bane?" Natasha teased, grinning widely.

Bane just stared back at her, his eyes blank and his breath even. He shook his head. "No. I'm not."

The sing-song, lively lilt in his voice was gone. His words came flat and even.

Natasha realized she'd hurt his feelings, then admonished herself for being surprised that he had feelings to hurt in the first place. Of course he did. He was human under that mask, wasn't he? He'd felt human enough when he'd been… well, dwelling on it would do no good at all.

Feeling her cheeks flush as she internally saw flashes of Bane hovering over her, heard his voice in her ear again, felt his fingers…

_Stop it right this instant!_ Natasha screamed at herself in her mind.

"I don't know, Bane," she said out loud. "You seem pretty damned skilled to me."

"And you have enough experience to make an educated judgment?"

There he was, wounding her again. He'd essentially just called her a whore. Now Natasha's cheeks flushed with anger.

"You need to learn how to take a compliment, instead of pushing people away!" she said loudly, realizing she was doing what Talia had just done. She was reprimanding him. When Talia had done it, Bane had become irate. He had seemed dangerous.

Indeed, when she scolded him, Bane's eyes flashed with rage.

"Are you women conspiring to make me lose my temper?" he asked.

"No," Natasha answered cautiously, gripping the edge of the blanket. "I'm sorry. I just… you insulted me, and I was only trying to commend you."

Bane's eyes softened. Then, suddenly, a look of realization came over his face and he stared down at his hands as if they were covered in blood.

"What time is it?" he asked rhetorically, striding over to the watch that lay on its side on the side table. He picked it up and looked at its face, then threw it down. "She's two hours late. That's why she was here," he muttered, obviously more to himself than to Natasha.

"Talia?" Natasha asked, though it seemed unnecessary. "Why was she late?"

"To fill this up!" Bane answered, gesturing wildly toward his mask. He seemed to be panicking.

"Well, how much reserve does it have?" Natasha asked.

"It's out. My fucking back… agh!" Bane reached for the arm of the couch and leaned on it, panting furiously.

Natasha flung her legs over the side of the bed and willed herself to stand. She took one unsteady step at a time to get to Bane, and put one hand at the base of his thick spine. She was astonished to see a drop trickle off the metal of the mask; a tear had fallen from Bane's eye and worked its way through the contraption.

"Where is Talia? Does she have the anesthetic?" Natasha asked anxiously, ignoring the whirling dizziness she was experiencing from standing.

Bane just nodded.

"Where is she?" Natasha asked again. This time, Bane shook his head no.

"You're not… going to her," he panted, his voice strained and wracked with pain. "You can barely stand… let alone… let alone walk."

He managed to inch himself around the arm of the couch so he could sit down on the furniture, collapsing onto the cushion and burying his sobbing face in his hands.

"I can!" Natasha insisted. "Bane, I can make it. Tell me where she is."

Bane looked up from his hands. His eyes were rimmed with red and were wet.

"You won't go to her," he postulated. "You'll leave."

Natasha narrowed her eyes. "Didn't I tell you," she began quietly, raising her fingers to Bane's cheek, "that I wanted to help you? Let me help you now, like you helped me. I will not leave, Bane. You have my word. Besides, I know you'd find me." She gave him a rueful little smile, and his eyes stared sorrowfully back at her. He was silent for a moment, then sighed and said,

"She's in the third room on the right."

That was all Natasha needed to hear. She turned and walked as quickly as she could to the door, pulling it open and shielding her eyes against the fluorescence of the hallway. She hustled down the hall, counting doors on the right side. When she reached the third door, it was glass, like her original room had been. Inside, Talia sat in an armchair, watching a television. Natasha rapped anxiously on the door. Immediately, Talia reached on the table beside her and grabbed a pistol. Throwing her hands in the air and taking a giant step backward, Natasha yelled through the glass,

"I'm here for his medicine!"

She wasn't sure if Talia had heard her, because the older woman pointed the gun at Natasha as she stepped cautiously to the doorway. She flung open the door and said,

"What did you say, girl?"

"I said, I'm here for Bane's anesthetic. He's in excruciating pain, and it's getting worse by the minute. He needs his medicine, and he said you have it. Please do not shoot me."

Talia grabbed Natasha's shoulder with one hand and pointed the gun at her with the other. She dragged Natasha down the hall faster than Natasha could really handle, all the while at gunpoint. When they reached Bane's room, the door was still open from Natasha's exit, and Bane's screams were audible from the hallway.

He was roaring like a madman. As Talia pushed the door open with her foot and dragged Natasha inside, she said loudly enough to be heard over Bane's shrieks,

"My friend, I have your medicine. Soon all your pain will be gone."

Bane looked up at them, tears streaming from his eyes, veins bulging on his flushed scalp. He was not happy with the sight in front of him: Talia grasping a terrified-looking Natasha, holding a gun to her chest. Talia kicked the door shut behind her and shoved Natasha to the ground. Natasha wailed, her own pain abruptly returning as the Vicodin proved to be a poor antidote to physical abuse.

"Don't you dare try to leave this room, girl, or you won't make it halfway down the hall," Talia threatened her.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Bane's roar was louder than any cry of pain he'd emitted. "Talia! You come in here with a gun pointed at her? Push her to the ground? Threaten her life?"

"She's your prisoner, not your love interest!" Talia echoed the words that Natasha had told herself earlier.

"Give Natasha the vials and get the fuck out!" Bane shouted, clutching his ribs and doubling over in agony.

"She doesn't know how to -"

"Go, Talia." Bane pointed at the door.

Talia looked as wounded as Bane clearly felt. She extracted three small glass vials of clear liquid from the little purse around her wrist and planted them in Natasha's outstretched hand. After hesitating for a moment, she took out a fourth vial, one of cloudy white liquid, and pressed that one into Natasha's hand, as well. Talia didn't offer to help Natasha off the ground before stamping out of the room. Just before she shut the door behind her, she peeked inside and said quietly,

"I'm sorry, Bane. Feel better."

Bane shook his head as he heaved with sobs. Natasha scrambled over to him, kneeling before him and holding out the vials of clear liquid.

"Here," she said. "What do I do?"

"Pour the clear ones… one at a time… into the tubes at the back," Bane instructed her through his distress. "The white one… that's for emergencies. Into one of the tubes."

"What will it do?"

"Just do it, please, Natasha!" Bane's hands clenched into fists and slammed against the leather cushion. An angry, anguished hiss seethed through the mask as another wave of pain hit him, and more tears streamed from his eyes. "Fuck!" he yelled. Since she'd met him, Natasha hadn't heard Bane swear, so hearing him use the dread f-word twice in as many minutes validated the gravity of the situation.

Natasha nodded resolutely and began unscrewing the little black cap on the first vial. With a shaking hand, she poured it into one of the large tubes on the back of the mask. She did the same with the other clear vials, then with uncertainty poured in the white liquid, as well.

"Let me help you to the bed," Natasha offered when she was done with the anesthetic and the mysterious white liquid.

Bane laughed derisively. "In about five minutes, I will want to be anywhere but tucked into bed," he said.

"What? Why? What did I just give you?" Natasha stood cautiously, still unsteady on her own feet, and took a guarded step back from Bane. He reached out and grasped her hands in his, urging her to walk back toward him, and Natasha could tell that, already, the inhaled anesthetic was relieving Bane's pain. "What did I just give you?" she asked again.

"A form of Ecstasy," Bane said with a hint of glee in his mechanical voice. The modulation and rhythm was back. "In emergencies like this, it speeds and intensifies the anesthetic."

Natasha rolled her eyes and pulled her hands away from Bane's. "And it probably makes you a hallucinating horn dog with sensory overload, too. I've been around plenty of people on X, Bane. Not interested. Please let me go back to the other room."

Bane's eyebrows furrowed. "I thought you wanted to help me," he said, and once again his voice was pathetically sad. Natasha couldn't help but wonder if he wasn't just a phenomenally good actor.

She sighed. "How do I need to help you now? I got you your medicine. I didn't leave, just like I promised. I dosed you. You seem to be doing fine now."

"You would leave a man on drugs alone in a concrete room?" he asked.

"You would ask me to _be alone_ in a concrete room _with a man on drugs_?" Natasha demanded incredulously, planting her hands on her hips.

"You still don't trust me," Bane noted despondently.

"I've known you for a day! How could you have possibly earned enough of my trust for me to be alone with you while you're on Ecstasy? I'll go get Talia." Natasha headed for the door, but Bane caught her wrist and pulled her back.

"No!" he insisted, shaking his head. "I want _you_, Natasha."

The look in his eyes was now one of heated desire, and Natasha felt a cold rush of fear when she saw it. Would she be able to keep him off of her? Would he be able to control himself?

Would she be able to resist him?

"Talia gave me that drug on purpose," bemoaned Natasha. "She wants me to get raped."

At that, Bane sprang to his feet like a man half his age in absolutely no pain. His intimidating body language belied his words; as he towered over Natasha and clenched his fists at his sides, he said,

"I am _not_ going to rape you, Natasha."

"No?" Natasha squeaked, looking up into his eyes as he loomed above her.

"No. I will make it so the only need you have is my cock inside of you."

Natasha shook her head quickly and looked away. "Bane, I -"

He tilted his head, waiting for her to end her sentence. She looked back at him.

"That is not romantic," Natasha finished. "That is crass and gross and ridiculous, and you only said it because you're getting high right now."

Bane raised his eyebrows and sat back down on the couch, pulling his computer onto his lap.

"What are you doing, looking at porn?" Natasha asked mockingly, and Bane glared at her.

"Let us not forget, little girl, which one of us initiated oral sex earlier this evening. Which one of us screamed the other's name?" He narrowed his eyes and raised his eyebrows.

Natasha's cheeks reddened. "I'm going to sleep," she said abruptly. "I'm tired." She climbed into Bane's bed and snuggled against the pillows, resolutely squeezing her eyes shut.

"Am I allowed to sleep in my own bed tonight?" she heard Bane ask, "Or do I get the pleasure of rolling off my couch?"

"I don't care, Bane; I'll be asleep," Natasha answered, eyes shut.

She heard him sigh and fell asleep to the clacking of his rapid typing.

She dreamed that he took her against the concrete wall of the chamber. She knew he was strong enough to do it, to hold her with her legs wrapped around his waist as he thrust into her. He was high, too, so he took her for ages and ages before collapsing back onto the bed.

But when Natasha startled awake, she'd missed her chance. Bane was sound asleep in the bed beside her, lying flat on his back and breathing steadily through the mask. Natasha noticed that he'd taken his shirt off and was wearing only the brace that stayed his back. She peeked under the blanket to peer at his lower half and nearly gasped out loud. He was naked there, too. He'd had the sheer audacity to climb into bed beside her, naked but for his supports.

Natasha resisted the urge to wake Bane and scream at him. For one thing, she didn't know if he was still under the influence of the drug and how he might react to her scolding. For another, she wasn't too upset about his nudity. Though he wasn't sculpted hard or lean, his sheer muscular mass made Bane's body ridiculously attractive.

Natasha decided to play a bit of a trick on Bane. She'd snuggle close to his naked form, and feign horror at his nudity upon waking. By being intertwined with him, she'd make it impossible for him to sneak out of bed and put clothes on before she woke up. That would teach him to climb into bed with a woman without clothes – without her permission, anyway.

She edged nearer him, careful not to wake him, lacing one leg around his and placing one palm gently on the hard strap of his mask. She rested her forehead against his shoulder and sighed into the woody aroma of his skin.

When she fell back asleep, she dreamed so many smutty, lewd, and lustful scenarios that when her eyes fluttered open, she trailed a hand between her thighs and felt herself outrageously wet. There was simply no way this arousal could go unsatisfied. Natasha had awakened so close to orgasm that she knew it would take but seconds with Bane's hand and maybe a minute with her own to reach release. Yet, she didn't trust herself to be silent, and it wouldn't do for Bane to wake up to find Natasha writhing around in frenzy.

Natasha noticed a tenting in the blanket beside her, and the realization of what it was only served to make her more stimulated. She peeled back the blanket, slowly and carefully, to reveal Bane's raging morning wood. Natasha knew that nocturnal erections were usually less sensitive that those achieved by direct stimulation; still, she could make him (and herself) come, she thought ravenously.

Natasha thought about using her mouth again, and fingering herself at the same time, but her desires got the better of her. She impulsively yanked her underwear down and off, and rose up onto her knees opposite Bane's face. She carefully placed one leg on the other side of Bane's hips, and, charily, lowered herself onto him.

She moaned as he slid into her, his enormous girth filling her more completely than any man ever had before. It had been a year, too, since she'd had sex, when her boyfriend of three years had dumped her for a swimsuit model. So now, as she crammed herself full of Bane, she couldn't help but let a moan escape her lips. Her hands instinctively reached for her breasts, clutching at them through the red gingham fabric of the dress she'd been wearing for far too long now. As she started to slide it up and over her head to shed it, she felt Bane's hands grasp her waist.

Of course she'd awakened him. He'd felt her on his member, and he'd heard her whimper into the echoing chamber. Instead of startling, though, he'd simply placed his hands on Natasha's waist and begun urging her to move up and down.

Natasha succeeded in getting the dress off, and then she, like Bane, was stripped and exposed. She stared down at him, searching for surprise in his eyes but finding only a happy glow in his gaze. Wondering if he was still under the effects of the drug, Natasha decided to examine him by conducting the world's simplest Ecstasy drug test.

"Do you love me?" she asked. He chuckled, a low, rumbling laugh that crackled through the mechanics of the mask.

"Not yet," Bane replied, the familiar roguish lilt in his voice.

Natasha preliminarily determined that he was not still high, or he would have eagerly answered yes.

"Do you want me?" she asked, deciding to pass judgment based on the fervor of his response.

"Very much," he returned, his voice hoarse. He slowly slid his hands up Natasha's torso to meet hers on her breasts. "And, no, I am not high."

Natasha giggled a bit, biting her lip in admittance of wrongdoing. Bane reached up and traced his fingers across Natasha's lips.

"I wish I could kiss you," he said very softly, as she slowly moved up and down on him. In response, Natasha planted light kisses on his fingertips. "Was I right?" Bane asked, his voice a low growl. "What do you need?"

Natasha knew he wanted to hear something licentious. He'd talked dirty to her when he'd been fingering her. It obviously turned him on. She leaned down so her lips were touching his ear and her hand was on his opposite cheek.

"I _need_ your cock so hard, so fast, so deep, that I _really_ won't be able to walk," Natasha murmured lushly. "I want you to make me come harder and longer than I ever have before while I _scream_ your name so loud they can hear it down the hallway."

'They,' of course, specifically being Talia.

Bane's reaction to Natasha's words was so swift that Natasha landed with an _oof_ on her hands and knees. Before she could catch her breath, he had thrust into her, unforgivingly deeply, and began pistoning so forcefully and speedily that Natasha could barely keep her balance, and lowered herself onto her elbows. Bane snaked a hand beneath her and fiddled with her clitoris, causing such overload of stimulation that within seconds Natasha dissolved into the apogee of her pleasure, shrieking Bane's name and pounding the sheets with her clenched fists.

Bane wasn't finished, though, so he grasped her hips more tightly and thrust even harder into her super-sensitive entrance. Absently, Natasha worried that he might get her pregnant, particularly since she was right in the middle of her cycle, but at the last second, Bane pulled out of her.

With her face buried in pillows, gasping for air and recovering from her own climax, Natasha had no idea where Bane ejaculated, but it wasn't inside of her, and that was all that mattered to her at this moment. She collapsed onto her stomach, exhausted and sweaty and longing for a shower.

Meanwhile, her Vicodin had worn off, and Natasha was incredibly sore.

"Bane?" she moaned.

"Yes?" he panted from above her.

"I need something for my pain."

"Something besides what I just gave you?" he asked teasingly.

"That ultimately made it worse, I should think," Natasha laughed darkly. She felt the bed decompress as Bane rose off of it, then looked over to her right to see him standing at the bedside a few moments later with a pill in his hand and a bottle of water. "That pill looks different," Natasha noted.

"It's a different dose," Bane told her. "I'm weaning you off of it. It will still work."

"No one's weaning you off _your _anesthesia," Natasha grumbled as she swallowed the pill.

She tucked herself back into bed, aching with pain and knowing that the Vicodin would make her sleepy again. Bane silently got dressed, apparently for a day's work, in black cargo pants, jackboots, a black undershirt, and his flak jacket.

The medication made Natasha significantly more tired, more quickly, than she expected or really wanted it to.

"Bane?" she asked timidly, "are you sure this was _less_ Vicodin?"

"It wasn't Vicodin," he said after a pause, looking her dead in the eye. The image of his face started to go blurry.

"What?" Natasha asked, the word slush in her mouth.

"Don't worry about what it was. You get to go home."

And then, Natasha felt her eyes shut, and she fell into a deep and unyielding sleep.

When Natasha jolted awake, as if from death, she was in her own bed in her own apartment. The only sound she heard was the ticking of the wall clock and her own startled gasp for air. She blinked slowly as she looked around herself. Everything looked the same as before she'd left for the farmers' market. Nothing seemed like it was missing. She got up slowly, feeling significantly steadier on her feet than she had down in the concrete bunker, and meandered to the kitchen area of her studio.

She opened the refrigerator to judge if it had been raided. On the contrary, the vegetables she'd bought at the farmers' market were stored in the crisper. Natasha gulped. When Bane had rescued her from her attackers, he'd even grabbed her vegetables.

Or had that all been a dream, a horrific dream? Maybe what had really happened was that Natasha had made it home safely from the market, put her own damned vegetables away, drifted off to sleep, and dreamed of a crazy masked man in a secret concrete bunker with whom she engaged in lewd and lascivious acts.

But then she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above her kitchen sink. Her right eye was still a nasty purple and green around the socket. Her ribs ached when she breathed in. Then her eyes cast downward and saw an orange prescription bottle of pills on the counter. Natasha picked it up and read the label. It was a script from the pharmacy a block down the street. The date on it was two days after she'd gone to the market.

NATASHA D. LEMOV, it read at the top, with her address just underneath. Then, in the spot for the name of the prescription, it read VICOPROFEN 300 mg TABLETS – TAKE 1 TABLET EVERY 4 TO 6 HOURS AS NEEDED FOR PAIN.

Confused, Natasha checked the spot for the prescribing doctor. JONATHAN CRANE, MD, it read. Natasha had never heard of him, but obviously he was a confederate of Bane's – if, in fact, this Bane man Natasha was remembering was even real.

As if to firmly repudiate her hesitations, there was a handwritten note beside the bottle of pills. The writing on the notepaper was small and imprecise… clearly a man's writing, Natasha thought. She picked up the small paper and gave it a perfunctory glance. It was covered front and back with writing. She carried it over to the little kitchen table and sat at the chair, and began to read.

"Natasha,

First of all, I promise that these pills are legitimately what they say they are – I have no reason to trick you now that you are safely at home. They are Ibuprofen and Vicodin. Hopefully they will quell your pain until you heal. I sincerely hope that you heal well enough that you need them only a short while.

You may be asking yourself any number of things right now. You may be asking yourself why I drugged you to take you home. The answer to that is that the location of where you were must remain secret – at least, to those who have not earned my trust.

You may be asking yourself why you were taken home at all. That is simple. I like for people to have a choice. It is better, I think, to give you the choice tocome back than it would have been to give you the choice to leave. I hope you can see this logic. If you decide not to come back… well, that is the rational thing to do, and you will have nothing to fear for this choice. But if you should ever change your mind, and want to join the ranks of our happy little legion, call the number that's been programmed into your phone.

- B"

Natasha could hear Bane's processed voice reading the note in her mind. Looking around her trashy little studio apartment, she wondered briefly to what she'd been returned. Her parents had died in a car crash when she was nineteen. She was single. She had few friends. Her apartment building didn't even allow pets. Really, she was quite alone in the world. But now Bane was offering her companionship… perhaps not with him, but with people of whom he approved, and maybe she could work her way back up to him caring about her.

The way he cared about Talia.

Natasha frantically reached for her purse and pulled out her cell phone. It had just a smidge of battery life, so she connected it to its charger while she used it. She scrolled through her contacts, of which there were few, looking for an unfamiliar one. She didn't have to look long.

B. That was all it said. The letter B, just like how the note had been signed. Natasha's finger hovered over 'call' on the screen, ready to connect to the contact, but something kept her from pressing it.

Bane hadn't even mentioned in the note that she'd given him her body just a day after meeting him. She had no idea how he felt about that. Did he want more? Did he like it? Or… did he think she was a desperate, cloying little whore?

There was only one way to find out.

She pressed 'call' and, with a trembling hand, raised the phone to her ear. She gulped heavily and took a shaking breath.

The phone rang three times, and Natasha contemplated hanging up after the third ring. But then someone answered. It was not Bane. Natasha didn't recognize the man's voice.

"Hello, Ms. Lemov."

"Hello," Natasha replied. "Who is this?"

"This is Dr. Jonathan Crane."

"Oh. Thank you for the prescription," Natasha said timidly.

"Not a problem, Natasha. Can I call you Natasha?" the doctor asked, his voice as slick as an oyster.

"Sure," said the girl. "Can I please speak with… with Bane?"

"In just one minute," Dr. Crane assured her. "Natasha, do you often sleep with men within a day of meeting them? I'm asking because I'm a psychiatrist. You don't have to be ashamed; please answer me honestly."

Natasha felt her eyes widen and her cheeks grow hot, whether with anger or embarrassment, she couldn't tell. "He told… why would he…"

"Like I said, Natasha, I'm a psychiatrist," Dr. Crane repeated. "So, is this normal behavior for you?"

"No!" Natasha insisted, her voice defensive. "I've slept with two boyfriends before, long-term boyfriends! Something tells me Bane's had a lot more women than that, and I'm sure they weren't all enduring relationships!"

"What makes you think Bane is that sort of man?" Dr. Crane asked. "Didn't he tell you he was _not_ a so-called 'womanizer'?"

"What makes you two think _I'm_ that sort of _woman_? And, anyway, were you watching CCTV or something?" Natasha asked harshly. "What else do you know?"

"Only what my patient has disclosed to me and asked me to explore further," he said diplomatically.

"Well, you can tell Bane I've changed my mind and that I'm staying here. Sorry for calling, and sorry people think I'm a slut!" Natasha was crying as she spat the last word. She was also shouting at the doctor. She prepared to hang up the phone, but then the doctor said,

"Why don't I let you talk to him directly?"

Now Natasha wasn't so sure that was what she wanted. That was what she'd requested when Dr. Crane had picked up the phone, sure, but now she thought she might yell at him. Her feelings were battered. So she didn't answer Dr. Crane's suggestion.

"Natasha?" he said again. "He's right here."

"Okay," she said finally. There was a silence on the other end, then she heard Bane's voice. He was far more difficult to understand over the phone than he was in person.

"Good afternoon, Natasha."

"Hi," she mumbled. She tried to change the subject. "Thank you for taking me home."

"I didn't take you myself, I'm afraid. Too conspicuous. You were loaded into a package delivery truck and you were 'delivered' to your apartment."

Why he seemed to take glee in telling her the sordid details of how she'd been returned home, Natasha did not know. Apparently she'd been treated like a corpse to be hidden. Bane wasn't the nicest man on the planet. That was for sure.

"Thank you for letting me be taken home, then," she clarified.

"Apparently, you don't want to stay," Bane noted, his voice muffled by the double filtration.

"I'm certainly not expecting to come back and pick up where we left off," Natasha said slowly. "but maybe I can join your 'happy little legion.'"

"Why?"

"Because I'm very alone here."

Bane was silent for a long moment, and then sighed. "That makes two of us."

"So, can I come work for you?" she asked.

"Of course," he said. "There is only one thing I need you to do to earn my trust. Believe it or not, you don't have that quite yet."

"Okay," Natasha said hesitantly. "What do I have to do?"

"Get a pen and paper, first of all."

She did, and prepared to write down instructions.

"Go to 761 North Prorsum Street. It's a cheese shop. Ask the man at the counter if he has any Podolico cheese available for sale. He will then give you a large brown paper bag. In it will be $150,000 in cash. Take the bag and go to the North Hubbard Street subway station. Next to the tracks, there is a maintenance door that says "Authorized Personnel Only." Knock seven times. The door will click unlocked. Enter the room. It will be pitch black upon your entry. Stand still. These are your instructions."

Natasha scrambled to finish writing down the directions, and nodded to herself. A cash transfer. Of course Bane was involved in some sort of criminal enterprise. It seemed, though, like his business was far larger than she had originally anticipated. He was entrusting her with a cash transfer of $150,000? That seemed a huge sum of money to a poor journalist like her. Was this just a test, though, a test of loyalty? Or was it a real transaction? Could it be both?

"I shouldn't have to tell you," Bane said through the phone, "that it is strongly to your benefit to follow these instructions precisely. You will be watched."

Then there was a beep as the call disconnected. Natasha immediately began dashing into action. She clicked on the television set, which was tuned to the news, to fill her in on what had been going on in Gotham the last few days. She did work for newspapers, after all, and liked to keep herself apprised of goings-on. As she listened to mundane stories, she frantically packed a rolling suitcase of clothes, toiletries, and a few sentimental items – her mother's gold earrings, her father's watch, and her silver hairbrush. She packed the prescription bottle of Vicoprofen. The last thing she put in the bag was the note Bane had written her.

As she stripped down and let her hair loose to get in a much-needed and much-desired shower, a story on the news caught Natasha's eye and ear.

"Well, heiress Miranda Tate has declared her intentions to live permanently right here in Gotham City, buying a penthouse apartment not far from where billionaire Bruce Wayne has a myriad of expensive properties. The socialite had this to say regarding her relocation:"

"Andrea, I love Los Angeles, but the go-go-go of Gotham is where I want to be. I love this city, and I intend on staying. I'm here to work as an ambassador for environmental causes."

Natasha gasped and her eyes shot up. She knew that voice. She knew that face. It was Talia.

So Talia had an alias. She was Miranda Tate. Or, rather, Miranda Tate was really Talia. Bane had the assets of a public multi-millionaire at his disposal. What in God's name were they all up to?

Eager to find out, Natasha jumped in the shower and ran it cold to make herself scrub and lather faster. She braided her long hair instead of drying it, and didn't bother with makeup, despite the black eye.

She changed her Facebook status to say she was moving away and would be permanently out of contact.

And then she took her suitcase and her purse and she departed her studio apartment, leaving it unlocked.

She proceeded to the first address given to her by Bane, 761 N Prorsum St. Boosted by a newfound confidence, she asked the man working behind the counter if he had Podolico cheese. He raised his eyebrows and nodded, bending under the counter and emerging with a sizeable brown paper bag, rolled shut at the top. Natasha took the bag in her arm and squeezed, feeling the rectangular stacks of cash against her torso. She nodded at the man and left the cheese shop, walking a few blocks east to Hubbard Street. She trotted down the steps into the subway station. She bought a ticket to Mason Avenue and headed into the arched chamber when the trains arrived.

Walking down the tube along the tracks, she looked at the doors on the right. "Women's Restroom," "Men's Restroom," "High Voltage," and then, at last, at the very end before the lights disappeared and the subway became a dark tunnel, "Authorized Personnel Only."

Only now feeling the fluttering of nerves, Natasha rapped seven distinct times on the door. Seconds later, there was a loud click, and she pulled it open. As promised, it was completely dark inside. She stepped cautiously inside, wondering if she would plummet to her death, but felt a floor beneath her feet. The door swung shut behind her, and then she was immersed in the darkness.

"Stand perfectly still," an unfamiliar man's voice said, and suddenly the floor vibrated and Natasha felt motion. She was on a platform elevator, she thought. After about ten seconds, the vibration of the floor stopped. Abruptly, there was bright light in front of Natasha as a door opened. Shielding her eyes until they adjusted to the light, Natasha realized that the hallway in front of her was the familiar one she'd seen before.

Bane was just feet away, she thought, or at least his bedroom was. He probably had an office he used during the day. Where would that be?

"Come this way." The man who had been with Natasha on the platform elevator gestured down the hall to Natasha's right. The man was large, but not in the way Bane was. This man had fat packed on his bones, and was shorter, more stout. He had a thick mane of graying brown hair on his head, and he smelled like cigarettes and beer. Would this be the type of compatriot with whom she had signed up to fraternize? Natasha sighed and silently hoped that Bane would allow her to see him every once in a while. She followed the fat man down the hallway to a heavy metal door, pulling her suitcase behind her and carrying the paper sack. The man knocked four times on the door.

The door opened from the inside, and another man stood in the doorway. This man was taller and leaner. He had chestnut brown hair, insanely vibrant eyes, and a pleasant smile. He wore rimless glasses and a tailored suit. He nodded at Natasha and her escort and stood aside, gesturing for them to enter the room.

This room, like Bane's bedroom, was diffusely and dimly lit by incandescent light. It seemed like the minimum necessary amount of light was being used. As Natasha glanced around the room, she heard a familiar sound – Bane's breathing. She whipped her head to the right and saw him sitting calmly at a plain, simple wooden desk. His laptop sat open on the desk. For a man with access to millions of dollars who'd constructed a complicated bunker system, Bane's office was surprisingly Spartan. There were no decorations on the concrete walls, no rug on the polished concrete floor. There was a bookshelf, as in the bedroom, and a floor lamp, and the unpretentious wooden desk.

He took a deep breath when he saw her, but his eyes were blank. It was quite chilly in this room, and as a result Bane was wearing a long tan sheepskin coat over his flak jacket. Natasha shivered in her denim shorts and tank top. The man who had let them in cleared his throat, and Natasha turned back to him.

"I'll take that," the man said, nodding at the paper bag. Natasha let him have it, handing over the bag like it was an infant. She recognized the man's voice as soon as he spoke.

"Dr. Crane," she said, almost bitterly.

"You seem to be feeling much better," he said in return.

"I am," she said. Feeling suddenly on the spot like a cornered rat, she flicked her eyes to Bane and back to the doctor and said snidely, "Fucking Bane is a very powerful painkiller."

Dr. Crane gave her a little half-smile in response, and to her left, Bane cleared his throat. He was sitting forward now, his hands folded on his desk and his eyes stupefied by her comment.

Natasha realized what she'd just done. Of course, Dr. Crane knew about her tryst with Bane, but the man who had escorted her from the elevator?

"Shit," Natasha muttered under her breath, staring at her sandals.

"Leave us," she heard Bane say, his voice grave. Out of her peripheral vision, Natasha saw Dr. Crane and her chaperone leave the room and shut the door behind them. Natasha wondered if she had just gotten a man killed. She wondered if Bane or Dr. Crane were capable of that, and something deep in her gut told her they were.

"I'm very sorry," Natasha murmured when the men had gone, still not looking up at Bane. "That was really stupid."

"It was," Bane agreed, hoisting himself to his feet. His jackboots appeared in front of the sandals at which Natasha was staring, and she felt his finger under her chin, tipping her face up to meet his eyes. "But it's not true, is it? You told me it hurt. You said you were sore, that you needed something for your pain."

Natasha searched his eyes for emotion, but he was stone-faced.

"Is that when you decided to send me home?" she asked softly, reaching up and hovering her hand over the hard side of his mask. "When you thought I didn't like it? When it felt wrong to you?"

Bane narrowed his eyes then, his pale brows wrinkling. "Wrong? Is that what you think?" He shook his head in frustration and ran a hand over the top of his mask. "I've always been someone's regret, from the moment of my conception." He took a step back and turned away, leaning on his wooden desk.

"That man out there is going to die for what I said, isn't he?" Natasha asked.

Bane turned very slowly over his shoulder, his eyes dark. "In many places, under many men, Natasha, _you_ would die for what you said."

"I'm very sorry I embarrassed you. Please don't -"

"Do not presume to tell me what to do, little girl," Bane hissed menacingly. "No one shames me. They irritate me. And they pay the price for that."

Natasha suddenly feared for her life. She took a step back and put up shaking hands. "Bane," she said quietly, her voice trembling. Bane strode over to the metal door, his sheepskin coat flaring out behind him like a cape. He opened the door and called,

"Bring him in here, Dr. Crane."

Dr. Crane followed Bane back in the room with Natasha's escort in tow. The man looked terrified.

"P-please, sir, I won't tell nobody that. I just -"

Before the man could finish his sentence, he crumpled to the ground. Bane had seized the man by the head and twisted it, breaking his neck fatally.

Natasha gasped and tears immediately began streaming down her cheeks. She'd just witnessed Bane, the man to whom she'd given her body, commit cold-blooded murder… because of her.

Dr. Crane wordlessly dragged the corpse into the hallway and shut the door, leaving Natasha alone in the office with Bane. Natasha was now more panicked than she'd ever been in her life, including just before she'd been jumped days before.

Bane stared at her silently as she cried, his hands clenched in fists at his sides. His eyes looked wild, like he'd experienced a rush of adrenaline from what he'd just done.

"Are you crying because you feel badly for that man, or because you are frightened of me?" Bane asked, and Natasha decided to answer honestly.

"Both," she whispered.

"Was I just a fleeting fascination, Natasha? A freak in a mask willing to fuck you? Where, exactly, did you foresee that going?" His voice got softer with each question, which actually made him all the more fearsome. She gave him precisely the wrong answer.

"I don't know _what_ I was thinking, exactly," she began, but stopped when she saw the look of mixed hurt and anger in Bane's eyes. She stared at her shoes again because she simply couldn't look into that gaze. "I was… I _am_… very attracted to you, Bane, and it has nothing to do with the mask. Though, you just ruined it a bit by _killing a man in front of me_." She flicked her eyes up and saw him holding the straps of his vest. "I acted too soon on my instincts. I was very emotional after the attack. I grasped onto the nearest ledge, the nearest hold – you. After I realized I rather liked that ledge, I took it too far, and I'm sorry."

"So, you wouldn't do it again, if you did it all over?" he asked, and though he was clearly trying to stay in control of the conversation, trying to make it an interrogation, his voice was obviously wounded.

"Of course I would, on a more reasonable timeline," Natasha insisted. "Why did you send me home, Bane? Honestly?"

"Because I knew you would regret me when you woke up," he answered.

"No," Natasha shook her head. "I _missed_ you when I woke up."

"Prove it," Bane said after a moment.

"What?"

"Come over here and prove that you're not repulsed by me, that you are attracted to me… that you want me." Bane held his arms open in invitation.

"Bane, you just snapped a man's neck. That's not exactly a turn-on."

"If you're too frightened of me or disgusted by me, then you should go back home." Bane sat down in his simple wooden chair behind his desk and turned to the glowing screen of his laptop. He began scanning the screen with his eyes and typing periodically.

"I don't want to go home," Natasha insisted. "I want you."

"As I said, you are welcome to prove that. I'm rather an empiricist," Bane said in his sardonic cadence. The way he challenged her only spurred Natasha into action. She steeled herself, strode quickly across the office, and kicked off her sandals, feeling the icy chill of the polished concrete floor on the bottoms of her feet.

"Do you have a music program on that laptop?" she asked Bane breathlessly.

"Yes," he answered, curiosity in his voice.

"Play me your favorite song," she instructed him.

"I very much doubt we have the same taste in music," Bane assured her.

"Fine, then. Put on… I don't know… Skrillex." It seemed like a logical compromise between the two of them, but Bane cocked an eyebrow uncertainly. Nonetheless, he clicked the track pad a few times, and "First of the Year" started playing from the computer's speakers.

Natasha stood a few steps to Bane's side, and cleared her throat to get his attention. He rotated his chair and sat facing her expectantly, awaiting her next move.

Well, she would show him, Natasha thought. After her parents had died, she'd become an occasional exotic dancer, in part because she was coping with grief, and in part because she needed the money. She'd only danced for six months, but she'd learned enough.

Her hair had dried, so she pulled the tie out of the end of her braid and shook her hair into long, loose, silky waves. As the song continued, she began peeling off her black tank top, very, very slowly revealing her stomach, then her back as she rotated unhurriedly. She turned back around to show Bane her leopard-printed bra, and unfastened her jean shorts. She began languidly sliding them down, over her buttocks, past her thighs, and kicking them off, revealing a pair of clingy leopard boy shorts that matched the bra. Natasha had been keeping solid eye contact with Bane the whole time she stripped for him, and his eyes had grown continuously darker and more ravenous as she'd danced.

She stalked, cat-like, to his chair, and pushed back the sheepskin jacket, urging Bane to shrug his shoulders out of it.

"I want to see those magnificent arms of yours," she said wantonly, flinging her long, dark hair over one shoulder. The song ended and another began, this one significantly more energetic. "Do you like what you see?" Natasha asked Bane, turning around to give herself a little spank.

Bane grunted in response, his eyes fluttering open and shut as he tipped his head back and shifted in the chair.

Natasha placed a leg on either side of his thighs and began circling her hips above him. The height differential was such that, even sitting down, Bane was at eye-level with her breasts. They weren't overly large, nor were they particularly small. They were plump and round and very soft, and Natasha arched her back so they edged near Bane's eyes. He held his hands up, a few inches away from her, and his chest heaved.

"It's not a club," Natasha laughed. "You can touch."

"Mmm…" Bane murmured with approval, taking her supple breasts in his large, calloused hands. Natasha moved his hands after a moment to the back of her bra, urging him to unhook it. He did it with one hand, as though he were relatively skilled at it, or as if it were an instinctual motion. He slid the bra off the front of her and tossed it onto the concrete floor, moaning when he saw how pert her nipples were. Part of it was the chill of the air in the room, Natasha knew. Most of it had nothing to do with cold.

She lowered her hips onto his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning in to kiss him there. As she began licking and nipping, she felt the mask tip back and heard the breath going through it accelerate and grow shallow. This effect was exacerbated when Natasha began grinding herself against the solid lump beneath her. She moved her hips in circles, up and down, and forward and back. She moved quickly, then slowly, gently and then much more firmly. She moaned, trying to sound as helpless as she could, against Bane's neck and stroked between his shoulder blades with her fingertips.

He grew harder and larger beneath her than she thought possible; he was much more aroused than any man she'd ever had to dance for before. When Natasha was confident she had him at the peak of his excitement, she stopped moving and whispered in his ear,

"Have I proven how badly I want you?"

"I think," he began, combing through her hair with his fingers, "that you are an extraordinarily well-trained actress."

"Oh, yeah?" Natasha grabbed one of his hands from her hair and brought it down between her spread legs, placing his palm on her vulva and laying his fingers below. She knew he could feel that, in her eagerness and anticipation, she'd soaked right through the material of her panties.

Natasha locked eyes with Bane, flashing him a mischievous grin and a playful stare. "Bane," she whispered, lacing her arms around his thick neck, "I want you – no – I _need_ you. Can't you see that? Can't you _feel_ that?" She rocked against his hand and sighed, whimpering slightly. "_God_, Bane, I can't -" She shut her eyes, tipped her head back, and ground rhythmically, slowly, against his hand and his erection. "So which is it?" she asked, looking up at the ceiling and baring her neck and chest to Bane, "Am I an actress or a slut?"

Bane quickly yanked the crotch of Natasha's panties to the side, exposing her entrance. He hurriedly unbuttoned and unzipped his cargo pants and heaved his member out of his boxers. He pulled Natasha up and onto him, and she slid easily down his length, crying out in delight.

"Neither," he murmured, and he drew Natasha against his chest.

* * *

**It's Not Just for Looks**

* * *

Natasha didn't see or hear from Bane for the next ten days. She didn't know exactly where he went, only that he wasn't down in the bunker. She entertained herself for three days with television and books before getting written instructions in an unknown hand slipped under the door of her room early one morning.

Her room, like Bane's, had a metal door and, of course, no windows. She had a full-size bed with bed-in-a-bag sheets and comforter in a ladybug pattern. She had a 20-inch flat screen TV that, somehow, had digital cable. And she had a bookshelf stocked with books she recognized as being from Bane's personal library.

When those instructions slid under the door, Natasha's heart fluttered. Was the note from Bane? She was acutely disappointed when it was not. She did not recognize the script, but it said,

"Natasha,

Time to do some real journalism – you get to be an investigative reporter. Find out where Penelope Moffat is going. She lives at 310 Hyatt Avenue and will be leaving the building at around noon. Follow her and record the location of her whereabouts, and the time she returns to her home.

Your vehicle is located on the 4th floor of the parking ramp on North Hubbard. It is a black Honda Civic, license plate 612-PDY. The keys have been submitted here.

When you know where she is, call 309-1402. Attached find a photograph of Penelope Moffat."

The instructions were not signed. Natasha dashed into action, hustling down the hallway and taking the dark elevator up to the subway station. She brought her cell phone, since it had a camera, thinking she might try to snatch a picture of Penelope Moffat, whoever she was, wherever she was going.

Bane had slipped an envelope of cash under her door before he'd left for his unknown destination, so Natasha had money for a cab to the parking ramp. While she sat in the back of the cab, Natasha peeked at the photograph of Penelope Moffat. She was a middle-aged woman with shoulder-length blonde hair. In the photograph, she was climbing out of a maroon Lexus.

The taxi arrived at the parking ramp, and Natasha took the elevator to the fourth floor. She wandered around, looking for the admittedly unglamorous black Civic. When she found it, she climbed inside and took out her phone, entering Penelope Moffat's address in her GPS navigation system. She pulled up to the unassuming brownstone on Hyatt Avenue and parked her car across the street. It was a quarter to noon. Natasha sat with the car off and the window cracked, watching the house. She realized she was a bona fide spy, though for what exact cause, she did not know.

At two minutes to noon, Moffat walked out the front door of the house wearing large, dark sunglasses and a broad straw hat. She unlocked her maroon Lexus and climbed inside, and Natasha quickly turned on the Civic. Moffat headed south on Hyatt, and Natasha pursued her.

Moffat made several turns, and it was a challenge for Natasha to keep on her tail. Finally, Moffat pulled up in front of an Italian restaurant called Carpetino's. Natasha parked her car nearly a block away and watched as Moffat entered the restaurant. She waited about thirty seconds to make sure Moffat was staying in the building, then dialed the phone number she'd been given. An unknown voice answered.

"Where is she?"

"Carpetino's on Peterson," Natasha said breathlessly.

"Thank you. Drop the car back off on Hubbard and bring the keys back to the bunker."

Beep. The call disconnected.

Natasha was very curious as to what would happen next. She'd been told to drop the car off on Hubbard. She hadn't been told when to do that. She waited for several minutes to see if Moffat would leave the restaurant, or if someone else would come out. She was not prepared for the swarm of police cars that appeared at Carpetino's.

Police officers, guns drawn, came flooding out of the cars and descended on the restaurant. They burst in the door, and Natasha could hear shouting even a block down the street. She watched, wide-eyed and heart pounding, as Moffat was dragged out of the restaurant, screaming wildly with her hands cuffed behind her back. She was accompanied by several others being arrested; another woman and two men were also cuffed and escorted (not so politely) out of the restaurant.

So Natasha had gotten a woman arrested. She wasn't sure whether or not these people deserved to go to jail or not, but it seemed that the police wouldn't have been tipped off to this get-together if not for Natasha's reconnaissance. Why wouldn't the police have put their own tail on Moffat if they had some reason to suspect her of a crime? Unless… she hadn't really done anything to warrant being arrested.

Shuddering at the prospect, Natasha tossed her scruples out the window with her tasteless gum and drove the car back to Hubbard Street.

That was the most exciting thing that happened to Natasha in the ten days during which had neither hide nor hair of Bane. On the tenth day, her cell phone rang while she was watching a football game on her TV. Natasha still couldn't figure out how Bane's henchmen had configured cell phone signal in the bunker.

Natasha glanced down at her phone, furrowing her brow. It hadn't rung in probably twenty days, since before she was attacked in the alley. The caller ID said simply, "B."

Heart thumping, Natasha wondered absently if it would be Dr. Crane on the other end of the line, since he'd been the one to answer the phone when she'd called this number. But when she pressed 'answer' and said timidly, "Hello?" the voice she heard was distantly familiar.

"Well, if it isn't my gifted little spy."

"You're alive!" Natasha noted with feigned surprise.

"You don't sound too happy about that," Bane observed.

"Well, it's a little lonely down here. There isn't much to do besides the occasional reconnaissance mission."

"I'm a very busy man, Natasha," Bane informed her pointedly.

"So I was told by Talia once. She came down here yesterday. Wasn't too pleased to see me. At all."

"She'll come around," Bane assured Natasha, "especially once she's found out you were the one that got Penelope Moffat arrested."

"Why was that necessary, by the way?" Natasha demanded.

"She was somewhat in my way," Bane told her.

"Naturally," Natasha said. "Where are you?"

"I'm in Gotham."

"Are you freaking kidding me?" Natasha stomped her foot. He was in the same cursed city as her? She wanted to scream at him for not calling, not sending a damned text message, much less showing up for a visit, for ten days. Then she realized he wasn't her boyfriend. Maybe he was trying to reinforce that by leaving. Maybe he was taking a break from her. "Business or pleasure?" she asked through her teeth.

"Strictly business. No pleasure."

"None?" Natasha pressed.

"Honestly, Natasha…" Bane sighed. His words were difficult to comprehend over the phone.

"Okay, okay. Am I ever going to see you again?"

"Of course," Bane insisted.

"When?" she demanded.

He paused. "Open your door."

Natasha felt a hammering in her chest and felt her head whirl. She flew to her feet and dropped her phone on the floor, soaring across the room in two lengthy bounds. She flung the door open eagerly to see Bane standing in his sheepskin coat and flak jacket, holding a smartphone up to his right ear. He lowered the phone and pressed 'end,' stashing it in his coat pocket.

Natasha wondered if he'd be smiling at her if he could. This was the kind of romantic surprise that boyfriends did, not men who had slept with a woman twice and played with her once. She looked around him. He seemed to be unaccompanied. Why everything they did together needed to remain secret, Natasha was uncertain, but she had promised to adhere to Bane's request – requirement – in that regard.

In any case, at this moment all she cared about was that he was standing before her. In his absence, she had perhaps begun to put him on a pedestal in her mind. She'd forgiven him for killing that man in front of her. She'd even come to see it as an act of courage – of chivalry – rather than the act of cowardice she'd originally perceived. For as dangerous a man as Natasha knew Bane to be, for as ruthless and merciless as he seemed, he had not harmed her in any way. Indeed, he seemed protective of her. Over the last ten days, that fact had gone from being a source of fear to sending a thrilling pulsation up and down her spine.

She'd fantasized about him more than she cared to say over the last ten days. She'd imagined all sorts of scenarios – her reading Victor Hugo to him while he reclined in a chair, him letting her in on his secrets and telling her stories, and, most frequently, making love in every position possible. Natasha had no photograph of Bane, so she had only the images of him in her mind to feed her fantasies. Now, as he stood before her, one arm on the doorjamb and the other shoving a phone in his pocket, he looked even more colossal and powerful than Natasha remembered.

"May I come in?" he asked, and his voice was much clearer – and also more rapacious - than it had been on the phone. Natasha simply stood aside and gestured for him to enter.

She'd expected to want to jump him when she saw him. She'd expected to want to kiss his neck and unbuckle his vest and rip off his undershirt and stroke his chest. She'd expected to look him in the eye and melt.

Instead, she was scared. He looked more intimidating than she remembered him looking, and she couldn't quite put her finger on why. He stood more confidently, perhaps more assertively. His eyes shone, but they didn't look dynamic. They looked predatory. The look frightened Natasha more than when Bane had broken a man's neck while she watched. It frightened her more than when he hinted at her own death.

Natasha wanted to know what he'd spent the last ten days doing, but she did not dare ask. She wanted to know if he'd been in Gotham all the while, but she didn't risk the question. She really wanted to know why he looked like a tiger about to pounce on its prey. That she certainly did not gamble asking. She feared too greatly the reaction. Therefore, she had no idea what to say. So she sighed and mumbled, "I missed you."

She thought perhaps in those three words she might convey her disappointment in not being contacted for ten days. Perhaps she might express that she'd spent that time daydreaming and romanticizing. And, most importantly, she could gauge through his reaction what his emotional temperature was.

"Did you?" he asked. He closed the door behind him and stepped heavily into the room. The lilt in his voice was exaggerated. "In what way?"

He was radiating dominance, and Natasha sensed that he did not want to be challenged. She realized she'd probably been far more cantankerous on the phone than she should have been. She decided not to take any chances now and to remain deferential. Though she was scared enough that she wanted to take a step back from him, she stayed put so she wouldn't seem too scared. She cast her eyes down to Bane's boots and answered his question.

"Many ways," she said. "I missed talking to you. I missed seeing you. I missed… touching you." She squirmed on her feet and crossed her hands behind her back, biting her lip.

"Look at me," Bane said firmly, and Natasha raised her green eyes to meet his.

His stance as he towered over her was daunting. He stood straighter than usual. His shoulders were rolled back and his arms hung at his sides like a gorilla's. His hands were lightly coiled into loose fists. One foot stood slightly in front of the other, as if he were preparing to run, and his knees were bent ever so slightly. His chin was cocked at an upward angle and his eyes looked down at Natasha. Her perception was that he was readying himself for a fight. Obviously, she couldn't fight him, so she had no idea why he was positioned the way he was. Nonetheless, she kept her eyes locked on his.

"Natasha," Bane said quietly, "You have been a problem for me for the last ten days."

"I have? What have I done?" Natasha asked nervously.

"You have been… quite the distraction," Bane answered, stroking the side of his mask. "Disturbing my sleep. Breaking my focus."

Natasha was so happy to hear him say it that she couldn't help herself from echoing his earlier question. "In what way?"

Bane took a step closer to her and tipped her chin up. "I dreamed of you vividly while I was sleeping, and even more vividly while I was awake," he said.

He bent down and lowered his head so that his mask was just a few inches away from Natasha's face.

"And of what did you dream?" Natasha whispered.

"Doing this." What Bane did next surprised Natasha so much that it quite literally took her breath away more than it did his, if possible.

He took off his mask.

He first turned the wheel on the back of his mask that controlled the flow of his anesthetic, maxing it out. He took a deep breath, then turned it all the way to 'off.' He unclipped the mask on the sides and pulled the device off the top of his head, lowering it with a shaking hand to his side.

Natasha barely had a chance to take in what his face looked like before he crushed his mouth against hers. She managed to catch that he had a classic nose with a straight bridge and full, elegant lips.

Those lips tasted tangy, like lime, with a chemical tint that Natasha was sure was from the anesthetic. They pressed firmly against Natasha's lips. Bane's left hand pulled her close to him by the small of her back. Natasha heard the mask clatter to the ground as Bane dropped it onto the polished concrete floor and wrapped his other arm around the back of her head. She absently wondered if the mask would break, but then realized it was all metal and canvas, and that it would almost certainly be fine.

She knew they were on borrowed time. Bane could only leave his mask off for so long. So this was why he'd looked crazy when he'd come in the room. He'd been physically overcompensating for anxiety. He'd been unsure of himself, so he'd tried to seem confident. Well, Natasha could make him feel adequate. She moaned onto his lips before he pulled back to gasp for air.

"How many times have you done this?" she asked him.

"What, taken it off to kiss a woman?" Bane clarified, and at the sound of his unfiltered voice, Natasha's eyes went as round as dinner plates. He chuckled, and even that sounded so strange that she looked a little worried. "Never," he answered, flashing Natasha a grin so radiant and seductive that she practically liquefied into a puddle. His teeth were white and straight and gleaming, which surprised Natasha for some reason. She wondered absently how he kept them so nice.

Bane was incredibly handsome. He had a face that could make any woman swoon. A pang shot through Natasha's chest when she realized that such a gorgeous face was permanently hidden behind the mask.

He dove back into kissing her, this time plunging his smooth tongue into her mouth and exploring it like an expert. He certainly wasn't behaving like someone who'd rarely kissed women, Natasha thought. She stumbled backwards, unable to stay steady on her feet, and landed on her bum on her mattress. Bane followed her, his hands still on the small of her back and on her hair. He swiveled to sit beside her and turned his torso to face her, all the while holding on to her like she'd disappear if he let go.

He buried his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of her skin and hair deeply and planting kisses on the delicate flesh beneath her ear. Natasha shivered and put her hands on his cheeks, feeling the rills and channels on his face where the mask had dug in over the years.

"When do you take it off?" Natasha asked Bane cautiously.

"Every day, just for a few minutes," he answered, his voice still sounding alien to her. His breath was hot on her neck. "To shave, brush my teeth, eat food, and drink water. It is excruciating. Every day. But there is no other way."

Natasha considered that answer. "Is it excruciating right now?" she asked.

Bane didn't answer for a moment. He kissed her on the lips somewhat frantically and finally panted, "I don't care."

"I don't want you in pain," Natasha insisted, touching her fingertips to his lips, as he'd done to her. Just as she had done, he kissed them gently.

"It is worth it, more than you can imagine," Bane asserted. He deliriously kissed Natasha's neck for what seemed like an eternity, until she was panting and moaning his name. He yanked up her tank top and pulled aside the bra that was (mercifully) front-clasp. He suckled at her breast for a few moments and burrowed his face in her cleavage. Then he resumed kissing her passionately on the mouth.

Halfway through a kiss, he cringed hard, his eyes squeezing shut, buckling over in pain. He panted through his teeth. "I think my time is up," he managed to say between breaths. "Please." He gestured toward the mask on the ground, and Natasha scrambled to grab it for him. Bane hurried to strap the mask back on his head and face. Natasha wanted to help, but had not the slightest idea how to do so. Also, she thought, that would serve no purpose but to wound Bane's pride.

He cranked the dial on the back of the mask up and began breathing quickly through the apparatus. Natasha wasn't sure how much he was dosing himself until he looked like he was going to pass out, and she pushed his shoulders gently down onto the bed.

"Are you going to OD on me?" she asked worriedly.

Bane shook his head no. "Not possible with this dial," he mumbled, and his words were almost indecipherable again. "That's the longest I've ever had it off," he breathed, almost with relief. "Didn't get to do what I wanted to do, though."

"What's that?" Natasha asked timidly.

Bane met her eyes with a wicked stare. "Taste you," he said, and his gaze drifted between her thighs. Natasha flashed him a half-grin.

"Yeah, well, maybe next time," she said quietly. Bane nodded. Despite his assertion that an overdose was unachievable, his eyelids began fluttering shut and his respiration slowed.

Natasha shook his hulking shoulders gently, leaning across his chest to do so. "Bane? Stay with me."

Bane reached up with his hands and grasped Natasha's wrists, his grip less forceful than it normally was. His eyes opened slowly and met hers.

"Natasha," he said, his voice wheezing through the equipment, "you stay with me."

Natasha felt tears rising to her eyes despite her best efforts to quell them; her nose burned as the tears bubbled to the surface. She was emotional from seeing Bane without his mask. It was not at all what she'd been expecting when he'd walked in the room. Before she knew it, she was heaving with sobs, collapsed onto Bane's flak jacket.

"Why are you crying?" he asked lethargically, his fingers absentmindedly snaking through her long hair.

"I really couldn't tell you," Natasha said honestly. "Girls are stupid like that."

"Come here." Bane croaked. He patted the bed beside him, and Natasha climbed over him to curl up against the wall. He sat up, very slowly and carefully, and unbuckled his flak jacket in about twelve different places. He shucked it and laid it heavily on the floor of the room, leaving him in his undershirt with his back braces protruding visibly. He glanced over his shoulder to Natasha, who watched him like a hawk. He sighed and reached back to dial down the dose of the anesthetic. He untied and kicked off his boots and finally lay on his back beside Natasha in the bed.

He stared up at the ceiling, as he was wont to do, crossing his hands over his chest. As Natasha looked at his face, thinking back to when she'd seen it in its entirety, she watched as a lone tear leaked out of Bane's right eye and coursed down into the metal of his mask.

"Why are you crying?" Natasha asked him tenderly.

"I'm not," Bane insisted severely. "My eyes are watering... from the medication."

"Mm-hmm." Natasha did not believe him. "You're very handsome, you know," she said quietly, changing the subject, "with or without the mask. It doesn't matter whether or not you're wearing it."

"Of course it matters."

"It doesn't, though. I find you extremely attractive either way. It is very nice to kiss you," Natasha assured him.

"Well, that will not be the last kiss you receive from me," Bane promised. Natasha very much hoped he was telling the truth.

Over the next few days, Bane and Natasha went about their business as if they barely knew each other, giving each other a pleasant nod of recognition when they passed in the hallway, going twenty-four hours without seeing or hearing from each other, and carrying out tasks that had nothing to do with the other. Natasha had essentially been assigned the role of "investigative reporter" – she was a scout, really.

She still had no idea what exactly Bane did. She just knew he was in charge.

One day, as Natasha sat reading in her room, her phone buzzed beside her. She picked it up and saw she had a text message. She never received text messages, so she clicked around curiously until the message opened.

In the sender line, it said simply, "B." Natasha had left the contact that way, in case her phone was ever stolen.

"Come to my office," the message said. Natasha looked up at the wall from her phone and thought for a moment. Why would Bane want her to publicly come to her office in the middle of the afternoon, unless…

"Am I in trouble?" she texted back. The response came almost immediately, so she knew he was doing the same thing as her and sitting with his phone in his hands.

"Of course not."

Natasha thought again. People came and went in Bane's office like it was a busy deli these days, so this clearly was no booty call. But he also said she wasn't in trouble. What was going on?

"2 minutes," she texted back quickly. She threw sandals on her feet and changed into the sapphire blue tank top that showed some cleavage. He looked at her a little differently when she wore that. Then she peeked out of her room to see that the coast was clear, and began padding down the hall.

She startled when the door to her right opened abruptly and the big man simply called Jones stepped out. He looked like he'd been a linebacker at some point.

"Natasha…" he said when he saw her, looking her up and down like a piece of meat, "just the woman I wanted to see."

"Have a job for me, Jones?" Natasha asked, resenting the way he was eyeing her.

He shook his head. "Not quite." With that, he grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her into the room. Natasha had the wits to scream as loudly as she could muster before the door slammed shut behind her. Jones turned a lock on it that sounded like a deadbolt, and slammed Natasha up against the concrete wall.

"I'm sorry my friends didn't get you the first time around," he said menacingly, "but I will have you." He seized her wrists and held them above her head, jamming his knee against her thighs. She was pinned to the wall. With one mighty yank, he literally ripped the blue tank top off of Natasha's torso, and he dropped its remains to the floor. To her chagrin, Natasha was wearing a strapless bra, so that was easy for Jones to remove even with her hands pinned above her head. "Bane may have taken out the trash the last time around, but this time, you lose. You can't run forever, and you escaped fate that day. You are mine."

Natasha screamed again, and Jones laughed at her, yelling, "No one can hear you, bitch."

But then, with a bang so loud Natasha's ears rang, the deadbolt came flying into the room and the metal door smashed open. Bane, in his sheepskin coat and paramilitary attire, came crashing into the room and said in a quiet, dark voice,

"I heard her."

Jones knew he was in for a fight. He looked around himself, alarmed, and let his hands slip off Natasha. She instantly dashed, naked from the waist up, over to Bane, who quickly shucked his coat and held it out for Natasha to grab. She did, wrapping the large garment around herself. The long coat dragged slightly on the floor, but at least she wasn't exposed as she shuffled fearfully into the hallway behind Bane.

A part of her – a large part – told her to go back to her room and lock the door, that Bane would take care of this and that she was safe now. But a part of her wanted to watch Jones die, and she wanted it to be at Bane's hands. So she stayed in the hallway and whispered, to herself,

"Get him, please."

She wasn't sure if she was expecting Bane to snap Jones' neck the way he had to others, but she wasn't expecting him to pull a gun out of a hip holster and give Jones a shot to the heart.

Natasha screamed again, a little yelp, when Jones crumpled into a heap and blood instantly started pooling around him. Bane lowered his gun and looked over his shoulder at her.

"Go into my office," he said, nodding into the hallway. He sounded shaken. Natasha had seen him express many faces; he'd been sad, embarrassed, content, and angry, but never rattled like this. The last time she'd seen him kill, he'd acted like he'd just bought groceries. Now, the hand that held the gun trembled, and he said firmly, "Go, Natasha!" when she didn't move.

She sat in his office with the door locked for a half hour before anybody came. When the door finally unlocked, it was not Bane who stood in the entryway, but Dr. Crane.

"Hello, Natasha," he said gently, leaving the door open a crack. Smart, Natasha thought, since her nerves were so on edge. He pulled up a little chair across from Bane's desk, where Natasha sat playing Battleship on his laptop. Bane had left the desktop unlocked when he'd run down to save her.

Natasha looked up from the computer screen and pulled the sheepskin jacket more tightly around herself. "Hello, Dr. Crane."

"What exactly happened in there?" he asked mildly. "What did he do to you? What did he say?"

Natasha relayed the events of the room as precisely as she could recall them. Crane nodded.

"So the men who attacked you a few weeks ago were his compatriots," Crane concluded, "and Bane killed them? It seems this was an act of revenge, of vengeance."

Natasha nodded. "Honestly, I don't want to talk about it any more," she said, "or ever again. To anyone."

"That's not a healthy way to cope with what's happened to you," Dr. Crane informed her.

"I don't really care," Natasha informed him bitterly. "Please leave me alone, unless you feel like talking about how the Green Bay Packers won by 50 points last night."

Dr. Crane cocked his head and stood. "Not really much of a football guy," he admitted, and he quietly exited the room.

Natasha felt the first hot tears she'd experienced in reaction to the trauma gush to the surface and bubble over onto her cheeks. She buried her face in her hands and cried silently until she heard the door open and shut, and she slowly looked up to see Bane, his eyes still glowing with anger, and a twinge of something else.

"This is all my fault," he said, running his hand over his mask. It was guilt, then, that Natasha saw in his eyes.

"How is any of this even remotely your fault?" she demanded. "You have now saved me twice from rape and murder! If you're trying not to be a hero, you're at two strikes, my friend."

Bane shook his head and clenched his eyes. "There is no honor among thieves, no loyalty. But there is fear. If Jones had known that you were mine, that I would avenge any wrong done to you with ten times the cruelty… he would not have dared…" He began pacing around the office quickly, shaking his head constantly and throwing his arms maniacally around.

"Yours?" Natasha clarified, ignoring the rest of what he said. She had meant for the question to sound like she were happy to hear the suggestion, but it came out with a hint of offended disbelief. Bane stopped pacing and looked at her apologetically.

"That's not exactly what I meant."

"He said that to me, you know. He said, 'You are mine.'" Natasha bit her lip and looked down at her hands.

Bane was silent for a moment, and then said, "You're not anybody's."

"So what did you mean?" Natasha asked.

"I meant… I meant, if he had known that I am defensive of you…"

"That you care about me?" Natasha pressed. Bane stared at her, and she saw him gulp hard and look down, then nod. It pained him to admit caring about anything, much less anyone, Natasha knew. She wouldn't push the issue further.

She wanted to know if he was monogamous with her. She wanted to know if there were any other women to whom he was strongly attracted. She wanted – needed – to know,

"Have you ever slept with Talia?" The words escaped Natasha's lips before she could censor herself. The question clearly irritated Bane.

"I have not asked you the names of the other men from your past," he said pointedly.

Natasha sighed. "Are you in love with Talia?"

That question, Bane did answer. "Of course not!" he exclaimed. "And, no, I have not done anything physical with her, though I have known her for thirty years. She has known me since before I had the mask. Can you imagine the depth of that relationship? But, no, Natasha, I am not in love with her."

"I think she's in love with you," Natasha said quietly. "She's jealous of me, and I'm not even in a relationship with you."

Bane blinked, and he grumbled, "There is so much wrong with everything you just said that I don't even know where to begin."

He stepped over to the desk and opened the squeaky wooden drawer to Natasha's right. He pulled out an unmarked bottle of pills and tapped one into his hand. He held it out to Natasha.

"What's that? Going to knock me out so you can send me away again?" she asked bitterly.

"Going to knock you out so your hands stop shaking like that." He nodded at Natasha's lap, and she looked down to realize her hands were trembling more fiercely than she'd ever seen. Perhaps the trauma was affecting her more than she wanted to acknowledge. She looked up at Bane with sad eyes and said,

"I'll just go lie down."

"I'll come sit with you," he said, unplugging his laptop and tucking it against his hip. He put his arm around the shaking Natasha when she stood and guided her down the hallway to her own room. He switched on the baseball game on TV and turned the volume down low. He slid against the concrete wall until he was sitting, and pretended to look at his computer while Natasha put on a new bra and shirt.

Once she was dressed again, Bane said, "I'll crack the door. Or should I bring someone else in, too?"

"No. Leave it shut. I only need you. I feel safe with you," Natasha told him, though that seemed like a foolish thing to tell such a man, and trusting him so completely seemed like an imprudent thing to do.

Even Bane looked surprised by her words, raising his eyebrows but nodding with what seemed like appreciation.

"Why were you so shaken out there? With the gun?" Natasha asked quietly, lying down on top of the ladybug comforter and pulling Bane's coat over herself like a blanket.

"It was the first time in a very long while that I have felt fear," Bane admitted, looking at his computer screen.

"Fear for your life?" Natasha asked.

"For yours."

They were silent then, as Natasha took the mystery pill with a half-empty bottle of water and lay back down. She watched the baseball game for a few minutes, but as she began to feel drowsy, she looked over to Bane.

"Why did you call me to your office in the first place?" she asked softly.

Bane hesitated and said, "That's not important now."

"Were you going to break up with me?" Natasha felt tears coming to her eyes.

Bane's eyes snapped up to meet hers. "Of course not. And, anyway, you can't break up if you're not in a relationship."

The way he said it let Natasha know that her earlier comment had stung him. She bit her lip.

"Just rest now," Bane insisted. "I won't leave." He didn't say it like a man who had just shot somebody.

Natasha sighed heavily and felt her eyes close. They cracked open a few minutes later, as she drifted in and out of consciousness. Bane thought she was asleep, she knew. She watched him as he quietly closed the laptop and put it on the ground next to him. He put his elbows on his knees and rubbed his palms against the sides of his forehead. Natasha heard him sigh, and then he reached down to one of the big cargo pockets on his pant legs and unzipped it. He pulled out a folded sheet of paper and unfurled it in his hands, looking intently at it. Natasha recognized the note paper as the same that he'd used for the note he'd left in her apartment. Bane seemed to be scanning the words on the page over and over again, because he stared at the page for what felt like five minutes, then crumpled it up into a ball in his fist and shoved it back into his pocket.

Natasha couldn't hold her eyes open any longer. She slipped off into the black. Her dreams were at once violent and comforting. She dreamed that she and Bane went on a mission to hunt down and punish everyone who'd ever wronged Natasha. That boss who had fired her for missing a deadline by an hour? In Natasha's dream, Bane had disabled the brakes in her car. The priest that had refused to give Natasha's grandfather (who had committed suicide) a proper funeral? Bane had taught him a lesson, too.

So when she cracked her eyes again and saw Bane sitting at the foot of the bed, his legs flung over the edge with his boots and socks off, she smiled to herself. He was just staring straight ahead, toward the concrete wall, breathing steadily through the mask, and slowly coursing his fingertips up and down his thigh.

He didn't notice her eyes open, so he didn't know that she saw him slide those fingertips from his thigh to between his legs and start a path there. He rolled his neck slowly as his hand manipulated the lump that Natasha could see burgeoning through the fabric of the cargo pants. Just as Natasha began to wonder how far he was going to take this, Bane unbuckled the wide black belt he wore and slid his hand into his pants.

She didn't want to embarrass him by calling him out on what she was doing, but she likewise didn't feel like watching him touch himself. For all Natasha knew, he was fantasizing about someone else right now. Talia or any other woman could be on his mind at this moment. Natasha pondered her next action as she saw Bane's head slowly swivel on its axis toward her. She quickly shut her eyes before he could see that she was awake.

She heard a sound that seemed like a few words emanate from the mask, but she couldn't make out what Bane said. She wanted to ask him to repeat himself, but he did that for her, in what was just a barely audible whisper.

"Ungh... More, Natasha."

Her heart jumped. Though she was mentally not in the mood for anything sexual right now, it did boost her ego to know that Bane was thinking of her... as he did something that was completely inappropriate.

"Kiss me again, Natasha."

So he was thinking of the day that he'd taken off the mask. That had triggered more than a few fantasies in Natasha's mind, as well. However, none of them involved touching herself while Bane slept a few feet away hours after being attacked for the second time in a few weeks.

Natasha didn't know if Bane was still looking at her, but now she didn't care. She opened her eyes wide and looked straight at the source of the words. She met Bane's eyes, and his widened with surprise before quickly scanning the room as if he didn't know what to do next.

His hand flew from his cock, then hurried to stuff it back in his boxers and pants and fasten himself back up.

"I can explain," he said over-hastily.

Natasha cocked an eyebrow at him dubiously and said with doubt in her voice, "Really?"

He sighed heavily, his erection still clearly visible through his pants as he held up his hands in surrender. He shook his head in defeat and admitted, "Not really, no. I don't have an explanation that will make any sense to you."

"You were thinking of when you had the mask off."

"Well, yes, that's part of it," Bane nodded, folding his hands self-consciously in front of his pants.

"What's the other part?" Natasha asked.

Bane sighed again. His face, and his bald head, too, were beet red. "When I saw you pinned against the wall, I could feel you slipping through my fingers like sand. It only makes me want you more. It makes me want to take you while I have you."

"I'm not exactly in the mood, Bane," Natasha reminded him groggily.

"I know," he said, nodding. "That's why I was... well, it was obvious."

There was a silence in the room for a solid minute, a horribly awkward silence. These were two people who knew about each other only the cards that the other had wanted to show. They were caught up in a whirlwind attraction whose depth and breadth they had not yet measured.

Finally, Natasha asked, "What's the note say?"

"What note?" Bane challenged.

"The one you balled up and shoved in your pocket."

"It's not for you," Bane insisted harshly.

"What's it say?"

He slowly unzipped the pocket on his thigh and extracted the wad of paper. Natasha half expected him to chuck it her face, given the look in his eyes, but instead he handed it tenderly to her. Natasha sat up and unraveled the ball. On it were written just two sentences, in Bane's writing:

"Pain can be harnessed. Desire can not."

Natasha stared at the paper for a long moment, as Bane had done, and then looked up at his eyes. They stared blankly back at her.

"What does it mean?" she asked.

"It means what it says," he replied simply.

"You called me to your office so you could take your mask off again and kiss me."

Bane nodded once, curtly.

"And then I rather ruined that for you by getting attacked – again – and coming in here and crashing."

"You ruined nothing," Bane insisted. "For others, there are consequences."

Natasha wondered to whom else he was referring, since he was speaking in the plural, but she shook it off for the moment.

"So what is this?" she asked, holding up the sheet of notepaper. "Your mantra?"

"Something like that." Bane gently took the sheet of paper from her hand, folded it into quarters, and tucked it away in his pocket.

"Pain can be harnessed. Desire can not," she repeated. She thought internally that that rather applied to her own emotional pain, as well as Bane's of the physical variety. How could she harness her pain? He had the mask; he had medication. To Natasha, that seemed like an easy way out. She would have to work her way out of her pain, like a chick hatching from its shell.

Clearly Bane was trying to learn to cope with his physical pain. He was trying to train himself to handle just a few minutes more every once in a while without the buttress of the mask. Maybe he saw the mask as a sign of weakness in himself. Maybe he felt stronger without it. Then again, maybe he felt weaker without it – afraid, gasping for air while in pain. Maybe he was trying to figure out how to shun that distress in favor of confidence.

Sometimes, especially over the last few weeks, Natasha felt like she was gasping for air in horrible pain, too. She'd had physical pain, sure, but it was nothing compared to the sensation of drowning she'd endured. The worst was while she was asleep, when she had nightmares of being beaten or, worse yet, being alone. So far, it had been Bane who had fixed everything: he'd killed all her attackers. He'd rescued her from isolation. He'd made her feel pleasure beyond anything she had imagined possible. It was Bane who was erasing her fear, her pain, and her loneliness. Couldn't she at least try to do the same for him?

Pain can be harnessed. Desire can not.

Did she desire him? Of course she did, all the time. Right this very second, she felt dirty, shuddering with the remains of trauma and grief. She would need something very powerful to make her feel like taking off her clothes in front of Bane right now.

"I'm rather a dandy gentleman, aren't I?" Bane suggested, breaking Natasha's reverie. "Slaughtering men and pleasuring myself in the presence of a lady."

She couldn't help but giggle, despite the objective seriousness of what he'd just said.

"Do you forgive me?" he asked, sounding repentant. Natasha smiled weakly and nodded. "This hasn't gone away the entire time I've stood here talking to you, you know," Bane said, his eyes smiling. He gestured down to his pants, where Natasha could see that he was still hard.

"Take off your vest," she said quietly, pulling her knees up to her chest to watch him do it. She hoped he wouldn't just whip it off and toss it away. She hoped he would take his time, like she had done. Bane the male stripper. It was rather laughable and, yet, disturbingly arousing.

He did not disappoint. He had on full regalia, so it took him a while to disrobe. He started with his brown leather gauntlets around his wrists and forearms, which had straps and Velcro. Those he did toss gently aside, moving on to the many buckles on his flak jacket. He hoisted the heavy garment over his head and set it down on the floor, and then stepped over to stand in front of Natasha. She rose up onto her knees in front of him so her face was even with his chest. She leaned her head onto his sternum and whispered,

"Don't stop there."

She reached down to untuck his coarse, light brown shirt from his black pants, and lifted it up and over his arms and head. Of course, she left his back braces on. She embraced his bare torso for a moment, feeling the warmth of his skin in the chilly air of the concrete room. One hand wrapped around the middle of his back, feeling the crookedness there, and the other planted itself on the back of his neck, over the wide, smooth scar that ran down Bane's spine. He coursed his fingers through Natasha's long, thick hair, pressing her head onto his chest. He let out a little sound of approval when she nuzzled her face against his pectoral.

She slid her hands down his back and around his thick brace to the belt around his pants. She unbuckled it without looking at it, and unbuttoned and unzipped the pants. She yanked them down along with his boxers and shoved them past Bane's thighs and knees, and he kicked them the rest of the way off.

Natasha was wearing a tank top and a pleated skirt, and although she wanted Bane, she was still not entirely in the mood to strip naked for anyone just now. She leaned up as far as she could and pulled Bane's ear down to her lips so she could whisper,

"Is it all right if I leave my skirt and shirt on? Just this once?"

When she pulled back from his ear and Bane saw that her eyes were rimmed red, his own eyes looked incredibly concerned, and he drew in a long breath before exhaling slowly through the mask.

"How about I put my clothes back on?" he suggested quietly. "I'm sorry." He looked down at his own erection and squinted his eyes shut hard, shaking his head as if to tell himself no.

"I would much prefer if you kept them off," Natasha told him, and Bane gave her a rather surprised look. "Come here," she said, and she gently pulled him down on the bed with her. She shimmied out of her panties and hiked her white pleated skirt up around her waist, helping Bane position himself atop her. He propped himself up on his hands and she spread her knees for him, her long hair fanning around her head like a halo.

When he lowered his face to be closer to her, the mask got in the way, and he swore under his breath. Then he turned his head a little, and the mask scraped Natasha's cheek. She gasped a little, reaching up to put her fingers on the scratch. That was the last straw for Bane.

"Fuck this stupid thing!" he exclaimed, and he sat back on his haunches and angrily grabbed at the clasps of the headgear. He ripped the mask off his head and whipped it across the room. It clattered so hard against the far wall before clanging to the floor that Natasha was sure it would at least dent, and that anesthetic would probably leak out. She stared at the mask worriedly for a moment, until the panting Bane tipped her chin back towards him with his fingers and assaulted her mouth with his. She squealed into his kiss in surprise, but that only seemed to egg him on to kiss her more fervently. He interlaced the fingers of one hand with hers, supporting himself on one arm, and Natasha thought to herself that this was the first time he'd held her hand since the day she'd met him.

He squeezed her hand gently, pulling it up to his cheek and encouraging her to touch him there. She did, gladly, feeling how his cheek had been rubbed smooth by the chafing of the mask's straps. He moved his lips to her ear, kissing the skin beneath it so Natasha shuddered and squirmed on the sheets. He raked his smooth teeth over her earlobe and whispered into her ear,

"I want to taste you."

"I remember you mentioning that," Natasha laughed, running her finger down the bridge of his nose.

"Please, Natasha."

She answered him using the words he so frequently threw around. "Of course."

He rolled over onto his back and grinned fiendishly at Natasha. His smirk was crooked and impish, and Natasha nearly reached for her phone to take a picture of his face like that.

"Climb on my face," he instructed her firmly, and his instructions were delivered in so clear a voice that Natasha didn't know how to say no to him. She rolled her skirt up around her waist and straddled Bane's head, facing him. He quickly wrapped his left arm around her waist and pulled her down onto his mouth, and Natasha glanced over her shoulder to see that he was using his right hand to finish himself off.

She couldn't see what he was doing with his lips and tongue. All Natasha could feel was magnificent stroking and sucking and nipping. She moaned frantically, nearing orgasm so much more quickly this way than she had ever done by touching herself or by having sex. Bane was doing plenty of moaning of his own, and his low groans vibrated on Natasha's entrance, only serving to further stimulate her. Just after Natasha came, clenching rhythmically around Bane's tongue and lips, he moaned loudly, and she glanced over her shoulder to see his seed streaming onto his stomach.

After she'd cleaned both of them up a bit, she lay on the bed beside him and stared intently at his breathless, handsome face. His lips were iridescent with her fluids, until his tongue darted out and licked them away. His eyes fluttered shut and compressed hard, making Natasha fear that he was lying there in immense pain. So she asked cautiously,

"Are you all right?"

"My dear, I have never been better in my very volatile life," he answered, his voice a hoarse whisper.

"Are you in pain?" Natasha pressed worriedly.

"I am numb," he insisted. "Not from anesthesia, but from sheer, unadulterated hedonism."

Natasha grinned at him, though his eyes were still shut. As She wondered how much longer he'd be able to keep the mask off.

About two minutes later, she got her answer. Bane's chin pulled up to his chest and he buried his fists in his eyes. His lips contorted in an expression that exhibited nothing but complete pain. Mutely, Natasha padded across the room and fetched the mask. It did look a little beat up. There was a slight dent in one of the tubes and one of the sides was scratched. She put her hand behind Bane's shoulder and urged him to sit up, then put the mask in his hands so he could put it on himself.

"Bane?" she asked him quietly as he put the mask on wordlessly. He raised his eyes to acknowledge her. "Why don't you just inject anesthesia, or take pills? Why do you have to inhale it?"

He didn't respond for a long moment. He looked as though the answer were a well-kept secret that he didn't particularly feel like sharing.

"The mask is not only for anesthesia," he said at last. "One of the medications is also for respiration. The mask is also a breathing apparatus. I can only breathe so long on my own. My lungs were damaged…"

"So the mask isn't just managing your pain?" Natasha clarified.

Bane shook his head and looked seriously into her eyes. "No," he confirmed. "It's keeping me alive."


	3. I Bless the Rains Down in Africa

**Pain Can Be Harnessed**

* * *

Over the next several weeks, Natasha accomplished several spy missions for Bane's organization. She followed a businessman all the way out the city to a sleepy little suburb, only to watch through a house window as he opened suitcases full of semi-automatic weapons and exchanged money with some men. He then took the suitcases out, one at a time, to his car, and returned to Gotham. When Natasha had returned this information, her standing around the bunker had risen substantially. People seemed a lot more deferential to her. She wasn't just some lackey involved in roughing people up; she was _intelligence_.

Natasha got so cocky and confident at her job that, when she wasn't occupied with an assigned mission, she started spying for fun. Her favorite target was Talia – Miranda Tate to the rest of the world. Feeling like the world's most sneaky paparazzo, Natasha climbed one day onto the fire escape of the building next to Talia's penthouse. She knew that Talia would be coming out the back entrance of her building to get into her limousine and go to a posh lunch with "friends" in about ten minutes.

Nobody else knew that, because Natasha had spent days figuring it out. How Talia had landed the cushy position of posing as a rich girl, Natasha couldn't fathom. Oh, right, she thought sardonically. She'd been Bane's main squeeze for the last thirty years.

These words came back to bite Natasha as the back door opened and Natasha raised her camera to get pictures to sell to the tabloids. She was about to press the shutter when she saw the figure that emerged through the door.

It wasn't Talia. It was Bane. He'd been gone since about four in the afternoon the day before, but Natasha had assumed he'd gone off on some important "business trip." She certainly hadn't thought that he'd off and spent the night at Talia's.

Lowering her camera dejectedly, Natasha legitimately thought for a moment about yelling out his name and making him feel like one of those cheaters caught in the act on a cheesy daytime television show. But her brain got the best of her. She had a momentary flash in her mind of him whipping out a handgun and giving Jones one fatal shot. He was probably armed now, too.

Her heart sank. No matter what explanation he gave for being at Talia's, or what other place he could say he'd been overnight, she would never believe him. He himself had expressed the depth of his relationship with Talia, hadn't he? Now he was walking out of her apartment building – sneaking out, really – straightening his sheepskin coat like he'd just gotten dressed.

Natasha felt the familiar burning in her eyes, nose, and throat that signaled tears were upon her. She furiously tried to blink them back, but they forced their way to the surface and simmered before dropping morosely down her cheeks.

She wasn't even afforded the luxury of crying in private. It turned out she didn't need to call Bane out. Apparently, she wasn't as tricksy a paparazzo as she had credited herself, and her hiding place not as clandestine. As he stood in the gravel alley, Bane saw her, or sensed her, on the fire escape and turned his head up toward her.

The instant they made eye contact, Natasha ran. She didn't know why she felt so suddenly and acutely afraid, but she did. When she startled, she dropped her point-and-shoot camera and saw out of her peripheral vision that it tumbled off the fire escape and plunged three stories onto the gravel alley below. Absently thinking that Bane had bought her that camera for use on officially sanctioned missions and that breaking it would only get her in more trouble, Natasha cursed herself for dropping it.

She dashed up another floor of the fire escape and saw that on that landing there was a door that said "Maintenance" on it. Doubting that it would be unlocked in a city like Gotham, Natasha decided to try opening it anyway. She was agreeably shocked when the door swung open and a dimly lit and fully stocked janitor's closet extended in front of her. She let the door close behind her and turned to lock it quickly. Though she knew Bane could kick in the door, she hoped he wouldn't. It didn't matter, anyway. The reason she'd been able to get in from the outside was that the push-lock on the door was broken.

Frantic, Natasha took a large step back from the door. It was good that she did, because seconds later it burst open again, and Natasha was treated to Bane's hulking silhouette surrounded by a halo of blinding light.

The only thing Natasha could hear was Bane's breathing, manic and shallow, being filtered by the mask. As he stepped after her into the maintenance closet, he slammed the door shut behind him and leaned back against it, trapping Natasha in the tiny room. He eyed a few unopened gallon paint cans and effortlessly hoisted them to place in front of the door. They served two purposes: they would make it difficult for anyone to kick the door in, and they would make it difficult for Natasha to escape.

Difficult, she thought, but not impossible.

After placing the paint cans in front of the door, Bane turned back to Natasha at looked her in the eye through the stuffy air and flickering light.

"I just want to talk in private for a minute," he said, sounding rather out of breath. Natasha had been fast getting up a flight of stairs and through the maintenance door, but Bane had caught her, and he'd had four flights to climb. Natasha couldn't imagine the speed with which he must have dashed up the stairs. He'd probably taken them four at a time.

"Why do we need to talk in private? What are you hiding?" Natasha asked defensively.

"I could ask the same of you," Bane replied, pulling her damaged camera from his coat pocket and holding it out to her. Natasha took it cautiously and wrapped the strap around her wrist.

"I just wanted to know what Talia – _Miranda_ – does in her little charade." Natasha blinked slowly and put her nose up a bit. "Now I know. She entertains guests."

"How long have you been spying on Talia?"

"Why?" Natasha demanded. "How many times have you done this?"

"Done _what_?"

"Spent the night with her," Natasha clarified haughtily.

Bane's eyes went round and Natasha heard a choked sound come from the mask. Then he sighed heavily and rubbed at his eye. "I've been here an hour and a half," he said firmly.

Natasha puckered her lips and nodded slowly. "Why?" she asked.

Bane shook his head. "You're not the only one conducting clandestine service, my dear. Talia has things to report, too." He looked up at Natasha with steely eyes. "And, anyway, what right have you to get possessive of me?"

"I guess I thought you were only sleeping with me," Natasha murmured, her eyes burning again. "I guess I was wrong."

"Guess whatever you want to, Natasha," Bane snarled, and he shoved the paint cans aside with his feet. He pushed the maintenance door open and hustled down the stairs. Talia watched him go, with the door just cracked open. He reached the bottom of the fire escape. Talia was waiting patiently in the alley. As Bane approached her, he extended his arm and wrapped it around Talia's shoulders, guiding her forward to the car. He opened the door for her and held it open, closing it after she'd climbed inside. Natasha couldn't watch any more.

She didn't speak to Bane for many days after that, which was a mistake, because a new girl arrived during that time and threatened to completely usurp both Talia and Natasha.

Her name was Mandy. She was tall and lean and blonde, like a runway model. She had piercing pale blue eyes and a perfect nose and plump lips just like the ones Bane was hiding under the mask.

Natasha began to wonder if Bane took the mask off for Mandy when she saw the way Mandy smiled at him, even just in passing. Mandy was multi-lingual and was going to be used as a translator for various purposes, so allegedly she would not be spending the majority of her time in Gotham City. Natasha began to suspect that Bane would be spending less of his time in Gotham City, too.

She got desperate, so she went to see the one person she thought might be able to help – Dr. Crane. She knocked on his office door one afternoon, and he opened it almost immediately, gesturing for her to come in.

"So… I think I know what, or perhaps whom, this is about," Dr. Crane said, folding his hands on his desk.

Natasha bit her lip anxiously. "Has he come to see you about me at all?"

Dr. Crane half-smiled at her. "Ever heard of doctor-patient confidentiality? I can't share that information with you; I'm sorry."

"Well, I'm surrendering my right to doctor-patient confidentiality. I want him to know that I hate Mandy. That I hate Talia. That I want him all for myself."

"There's a lot wrong with what you just said, Natasha," Dr. Crane said calmly.

"Oh, yeah? Like what?" she demanded.

"'Hate' is a very strong word, and an even stronger emotion. Don't throw it around casually. And you need to respect that Bane will always reserve part of his heart for Talia. Whoever gets near him needs to respect that."

"I need to know if he's ever slept with her! Especially since he met me!" Natasha began crying uncontrollably.

Dr. Crane cocked his head. "Didn't he tell you that he had not?"

"I don't know if I can believe him."

"Then you have some issues with trust, I think," Dr. Crane informed her. "You need to talk to Talia, and you need to talk to Mandy. Then you need to talk to Bane."

"And will you talk to him, too? He trusts you."

"I will," he promised.

Natasha went to Talia's apartment building the next morning and walked confidently up to the reception desk.

"I'd like to see Miranda Tate, please," she said. The security guard eyed her skeptically and raised an eyebrow.

"And who might you be?" he asked.

"My name is Natasha Lemov."

The security guard made a phone call and said, "Ms. Tate? I have a 'Natasha Lemov' here to see you; I'm very sorry, but she…" he paused and listened then. His expression changed. "I'll send her right up."

Talia's penthouse was even more cushy and modern than Natasha imagined it to be. She sighed, lamenting that so many of Bane's resources were going here, to furnishing Talia's extravagant alias, while Natasha lived in a concrete room.

"What can I do for you?" Talia asked when they'd gotten coffees and had taken seats on the ridiculously plush leather couch. Talia was being significantly friendlier to Natasha than she had been the last time they'd met, weeks before. Talia wondered if it wasn't because she knew from Bane that they weren't speaking.

"Well, I'm sure you know that Bane and I are not…"

"I know," Talia nodded kindly. Then, as if she felt it were a very necessary thing to say, she added, "I'm sorry, Natasha."

"I just need to know one thing," Natasha continued. "Did you ever do anything with him… physically… while he was with me?"

Talia's eyes darkened and she puckered her lips. She set her mug down on the coffee table and crossed her arms.

"Natasha," she said, sighing, "I had never done anything physical with Bane in my entire life."

Natasha felt her stomach sink and felt her heart shatter into a thousand shards when Talia used the words 'had never.'

"That was, until two nights ago," Talia finished. Natasha stared at her blankly, too horrified to cry. "Let me explain," Talia said.

"Oh, please do," Natasha hissed.

"I went to the bunker at about one in the morning to check on Bane. Since that day on the fire escape, he hasn't been himself. He confided in me that he realized in that closet that he was in love with you."

Natasha narrowed her eyes. "Then why did he leave? Why hasn't he spoken to me?"

"Because," Talia rationalized, "it frightened him. He thought it made him weak. I tried explaining to him that love makes people strong. It gives them something to fight for. But he was having none of it. He tried to get over you. He went to an exclusive, confidential brothel. He did some things with Mandy. He became even more violent than usual. And two nights ago, he finally came onto me. I let things get farther than they should have because I was curious, but it wasn't me who caused things to come to a very abrupt end that night. It was Bane."

"Why?" Natasha pressed.

"He said your name."

Natasha furrowed her brow. "What do you mean?"

Talia bit her lip and shrugged. "When it would have been appropriate for him to be repeating my name over and over, he started saying yours instead. With his eyes closed."

Natasha thought she should have felt very happy at hearing that, but instead she just felt horrible for Talia.

"Did he kiss you?" Natasha asked suddenly.

Talia looked confused. "How would he do that?"

Natasha flashed a microscopic smile for the quickest of instants. "Never mind," she said hurriedly, gathering up her things. "I don't want to talk to Mandy. Ever," she said. "Mandy will find herself in Timbuktu before she knows it. I'm going to talk to Bane."

"I don't know if he wants to talk to you," Talia warned, standing and looking concerned.

"I will make him want to," Natasha promised, and she dashed out the door and frantically punched the elevator button.

When she arrived back at the bunker, she rushed to change clothes into a white pleated tennis skirt and a tight red tank top that showed entirely too much chest. She brushed her hair out and put in a glittery red headband, and she put on a touch of makeup. She put on white wedge sandals and looked at herself in the mirror, thinking she had that "girl-next-door" look. It contrasted sharply with Mandy's uber-glamorous style, but that was her aim.

Natasha took out one of the notebooks she used on watch missions and scribbled a few words on a sheet in it, hastily ripping the sheet out. She clutched it in her right hand and calmly walked out of her room and down the hallway. Though she looked composed, Natasha's insides were churning and her head was spinning. The worst-case scenario was not getting yelled at by Bane. It was getting rejected altogether by him.

She half-expected Bane to have some sort of security or bodyguard at his office door, but the complete opposite scenario was the case. The metal door was cracked open, and as Natasha approached the office, she heard music playing. It was sweet, sad music, and Natasha was classically trained enough to instantly recognize it: the sixth movement of Beethoven's Opus 131 in C# Minor. It was a tragic piece of music, and if it was any indication of Bane's mood, it didn't bode well for his level of depression.

Nevertheless, Natasha cleared her throat and knocked four times on the metal door with the backs of her knuckles. She wasn't sure if Bane would hear her over the noise of his music playing, but then she heard a very tired-sounding voice say,

"Yes?"

Extremely cautiously, Natasha pushed the metal door open and stood in the threshold, not daring to look Bane in the eye. As she entered the office, the music turned from Beethoven to something perhaps even gloomier – Barber's Adagio for Strings. As if self-conscious of his evident melancholy, Bane pressed a key a few times on his keyboard and the music grew much softer.

"Natasha," Bane pronounced, like the name was at once ironic and toxic in his mouth, "What can I do for you?"

"Can we talk?" she asked quietly.

"Shut the door."

She did, pushing it closed gently behind her. This was a disturbing déjà vu. Their last conversation had taken place like this – the two of them, alone in a closed room. It hadn't ended well.

Then she saw it. A 9 mm Glock sitting on the desk beside the laptop. Natasha's eyes snapped up to meet Bane's.

"Why is there a gun on your desk?" she asked earnestly. A few possible explanations crossed Natasha's mind, none of them remotely palatable. Either he was waiting for someone to come in so he could pick off some prey, or he was preparing to shoot himself when Natasha had happened upon him. Was that why the door had been cracked? So someone would hear the gunshot? "What were you doing?" she demanded.

"I was… cleaning it," Bane said, stumbling over his words. Before he could reach for the gun, Natasha grabbed it. "Natasha, I was cleaning it! Give it to me. It's not even loaded!" Bane insisted, jumping out of his chair.

"Oh, no?" Natasha challenged. _That was a stupid thing for him to say_, she thought to herself. She knew full well there were bullets in the gun. She pointed the gun at her own chest and said,

"So if I pull the trigger, nothing will happen to me?"

"Don't!" Bane exclaimed, taking a leaping step toward her and holding his hands up.

Natasha bit her lip and nodded, lowering the gun to her side but maintaining a tight grip on it. "You were going to kill yourself? Why?"

Bane collapsed back into his chair and put his head in his hands. "Because," he said quietly, "It's a weak man who can't function because of a woman. And, really, what's the point if you're weak?"

Cross now, Natasha strode over to stand beside Bane. She used her left fist, the one clutching the paper, to rotate his chin towards her.

"I can make you _strong_," she said fiercely. "Stronger than anyone imagined possible." She shoved the paper, now badly wrinkled, into his hand and took a step back. He unwrapped the paper and read the few words she'd written on it.

"_Pain can be harnessed… and turned into power._"

Natasha fought back the wounded tears that had formed in her eyes. He knew her grandfather had killed himself, and yet he would do it to her, too? But now was not the time for anger. It was the time for healing.

"I want to put this gun somewhere that neither of us can easily reach," Natasha said suddenly, and Bane nodded slowly. He took some keys out of his pocket and used them to open a locked drawer in his desk. Natasha put the gun in the drawer and Bane locked it back up. Then he handed Natasha the keys. He held his hands up in surrender.

Natasha snarled through her teeth at him, "Going through with that would have been weaker than loving a woman, Bane." She pulled up a chair to sit across the desk from him, as if they were conducting a meeting.

"Why did you come here?" Bane asked.

"It doesn't matter now." She echoed the words he had once said to her.

"You came to confront me about Mandy… about Talia."

Natasha nodded once.

"They were poor substitutes for you, Natasha. Mandy was tiresome and dull."

"Tell it like it is," Natasha muttered under her breath.

"And, as I'm sure Talia told you," he began, raising his eyebrows, "I couldn't even keep from moaning your name."

"As you pounded her body," Natasha finished cruelly, crossing her hands on her lap.

"As I imagined yours," Bane said quietly. "And you?" he asked, raising his eyes to hers.

"What about me?" Natasha looked skeptical.

"What have you been doing?"

"I've been being jealous and mopey and crying myself to sleep at night." Natasha's voice faltered and she bit her lip hard.

There was a long silence then, and Bane looked again at the paper Natasha had brought him.

"So?" he finally asked, and Natasha looked confused.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"So are you going to take me back, or not?" He shifted anxiously in his chair.

She smiled at him gently. "Of course," she said.

He sighed heavily and blinked a few times, looking like he had just snapped out of a trance. "Well, is this where we have make-up sex?" he asked, a twinkle in his eye.

Natasha smiled but pretended to be upset. "We never formally broke up," she said.

"There was never formally a relationship," Bane pointed out.

"I thought kids stopped formally asking each other out in middle school," Natasha said playfully.

Bane stood from his chair and walked quickly to tower over Natasha. "Look, you come in here wearing _that_ outfit; you're clearly looking for make-up sex. And I am here to provide."

"To all sorts of women," Natasha sighed, standing with her face against his flak jacket.

"Make-up sex is supposed to be about getting over things." Bane walked Natasha backwards until she touched the wall, then reached under her skirt and yanked down her panties. Natasha stepped out of her wedges and kicked off her underwear.

As she did, Bane unbuckled his belt and pulled himself out of his pants. He hoisted Natasha up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Bane pushed her against the wall and thrust into her in one push, triggering a yelp from Natasha. He laid his palm on her cheek to soothe her and thrust in again and again, driving her against the concrete wall.

It was nothing for him to hold her, for she was so light and he so strong. But the brute force with which he pummeled Natasha took her off guard, and she knew she'd be feeling it for days. He seemed to be taking out all of his frustration, his desperation, his… pain… on her.

And as he growled loudly through the mask in the moment of his conquest, Natasha knew that what she'd told him was true.

_Pain can be harnessed… and turned into power._

* * *

**I Bless the Rains Down in Africa**

* * *

"The best-laid plans are doomed to fail,

When in the throes of pain we wail

That, just as Christ, we bear the nail.

Instead, my friend, to vengeance sail.

Prepare upon the burning sands

A castle crafted by thy hands,

And take thy most triumphant stands

Beholding conquered, pillaged lands.

For thou art strong, and they are weak.

How quaint to think each man unique,

When in one baying voice they speak,

And from their veins one red blood leaks.

Arise, arise, my star-crossed friend!

We near the thrilling, vital end,

Where sin its murky veil transcends

And into Hell all souls descend."

Natasha finished writing her latest poem in the leather-bound journal Bane had bought her as part of her birthday gift and shut the book gently. That was one she wasn't anxious to share.

It was partly about Bane and his plan, and how Natasha foresaw it all ending – with everyone's demise. She had steeled herself for that, feeling rather like a cult member at Jonestown lining up to take a swig of Kool-Aid. Except, Natasha thought, this line was very slow-moving.

Natasha had realized that Bane's plan involved nuclear suicide when she overheard a conversation between him and Dr. Crane one day. It was clearly not a tête-à-tête meant for her ears, but Bane had not been particularly angry with her for eavesdropping. He had told her that the plan would not come to fruition for at least another seven months. So, she thought to herself, she had about that long to live.

Or she could just leave Gotham. Only, she couldn't. Not only could she not leave Bane, out of loyalty that he claimed criminals didn't have, but also because she knew he would never let her go. Maybe Bane hadn't been so crazy to threaten himself with the gun, after all – expedite the inevitable. He'd bought her a journal so she could make peace with the plan. She'd chosen to do it through poetry and little musings.

In order for the plan to succeed, Bane had told her, there would be a lot of combat that would need to be successful. This frightened Natasha a bit, though she realized that was completely asinine. She was undergoing some training by one of Bane's lackeys, though it was more self-defense than offensive strategy. The idea was that Natasha would have a mission to accomplish, and she would need to fend off enemies to complete her task. She only needed enough training for that.

Still, that training was sufficient to cause Natasha plenty of body aches. As she sat at her little rickety desk, staring at her journal, she rubbed hard at her left shoulder, which still felt out of place after yesterday's sparring. It burned like it was on fire. Narrowing her eyes, Natasha opened her journal again and picked up her pen.

"Set the world afire and never fear the coming winter."

She shut the book again and pushed it a few inches away from her. She bit her lip and chuckled to herself, realizing that what she had just written sounded like a bad fortune cookie.

Still, it made her feel better.

Natasha glanced at the clock and realized it was time to head to The Ring. Bane had initiated a schedule of matches of what was boxing in name only. In reality, it was bare-knuckled, monstrous fighting that made UFC look like a schoolyard spat. Men had died in The Ring – more than a few. Indeed, these so-called "matches" had essentially turned into gladiatorial fights to the death. Bane had told Natasha that he was "culling the herd"… picking and choosing his soldiers for the coming battle.

The Ring was based on a horror from Bane's youth, a place he had told Natasha about that had been called The Pit. He'd been made to fight there, just as he was making his men do now. She'd asked him why he would inflict the same suffering on others that had caused him so much agony, and he'd looked directly at her and said,

"It made me the man I am."

The Ring was an abandoned boxing gym on 80th and King, and armed men stood watch while the fight happened inside. At the front of the watching crowd were always Bane and Natasha, who were now open with their relationship. Natasha thought that a bit sadly ironic – a man had died for knowing too much about what she'd done with Bane. But men were dropping like flies around here, and soon they would all fall and never rise again.

She felt rather like the Queen of the Underworld, even above Talia, because she was allowed to go wherever she wanted and have whatever she desired. If she didn't get her wish, well, Bane would make that person pay. These people, not all of whom knew the gravity of the plan, feared death. And they knew that angering Bane meant death.

Natasha arrived at 80th and King about ten minutes before the match was slated to begin. She wasn't sure who was fighting tonight. She didn't much care. She only went to these matches to appease Bane, who liked to take her back to the bunker and screw her senseless after the fights. They riled him up; they gave him an adrenaline rush. The match was over when one man was unconscious, but there was no referee besides Bane, so sometimes the match ended with a man dead, instead.

There were already about two dozen men, and a few skanky-looking women, gathered in the abandoned boxing gym when Natasha arrived. She was wearing a short black bandage dress and silver heels, and she'd blown out her long, silky brown hair with a blow dryer. She realized she probably looked as skanky as the women over whom she was passing judgment.

She remembered when Bane had liked her girl-next-door outfit, and she wondered if he liked her better like that or like this.

She didn't get the chance to ask him, because he was a no-show. Natasha pulled her phone out of her black sequin clutch and checked the time. 9:02. The fight was supposed to start two minutes ago, and the men in the crowd were growing restless. Natasha didn't like to think what the piqued men were capable of if they had to wait much longer for their gory entertainment.

"Come on, Bane," she whispered to herself, and then she got her wish. Bane and another man who just about matched him in size stepped out of the locker room to the raucous cheers of the crowd. Natasha was confused.

Bane had no shirt on, just his cargo pants and jackboots, and of course his wide waist belt supporting his back brace. The other man, the one called Samby, was also shirtless and wore khaki-colored loose-fitting pants. He stood about an inch taller than Bane, who already towered over most people, but didn't have quite Bane's bulk and mass. Natasha realized what was going on – Bane was going to fight.

Normally, Natasha would be fine with that, perhaps even a little excited by the prospect of seeing her man beat holy hell out of someone else. But this other man, this Samby, he frightened her. He was too large, too dangerous. And, anyway, didn't he realize how stupid it would be to seriously injure or even kill the master behind the plan – the man behind the operation earning Samby money?

Samby didn't seem to care. He stepped into the ring cautiously, earning a mild cheer from the crowd. Bane followed him in and stared him down, doing nothing to acknowledge the crowd. Nevertheless, his presence earned him a mighty roar.

He flicked his eyes down to where Natasha stood, in their ordinary spot, and gave her a quick nod. The metal of his mask glinted in the fluorescent light, making him look all the more menacing. Finally, Bane turned to the crowd.

"Friends," he said loudly, and they quieted down, "We are here tonight for no ordinary match. You are here to witness an execution. Lionel Samby is accused of selling secrets to the police."

The crowd hissed and booed. Bane held up his hand.

"I am not without mercy," he said, though even Natasha found that difficult to believe, "and I have offered him a choice. If he loses in the ring tonight, he dies. If he wins, he will be cast out forever and shunned."

And will die anyway, Natasha thought to herself. All Bane was doing was allowing himself the chance to cause the man's death himself.

"So, let's fight," Bane said, and he turned to Samby with fisticuffs raised. The crowd went wild, chanting Bane's name.

It took a bit longer than Natasha expected, a bit longer than she would have liked. The two men dirty-boxed for a long while using everything from ordinary punches to knees, stomps, elbows, and kicks. When Samby aimed a punch at Bane's mask, Bane caught his fist and twisted it hard, and Natasha heard the bones break. Samby's scream was insufferable. That was when it ended for him, really, though Bane was not so merciful as he professed to be. He threw the man to the ground and held him down with a jackboot to the chest.

Then Bane kicked Samby in the skull until it was obvious he was dead.

Natasha had been hardened by what she'd seen in The Ring over the last six weeks, but she'd never seen so violent a death there, and she'd never seen Bane do anything remotely like what she'd just witnessed. She pushed her way through the crowd and ran away, out the emergency exit and around the corner into the alley.

She vomited, again and again, and sobbed. All she could see in her mind was Bane, his booted foot swinging a dozen times into the man's head until it was crushed and disfigured and bleeding all over. His mask had gleamed in the light, and so had his eyes, with a look of thrill that she'd never perceived.

Natasha knew the fight was over. Samby was dead. There would be no other match tonight; how could anything possibly top what Bane had just done? Indeed, around the corner the men and their (probably horrified) dates started pouring into the back parking lot and into cars, and dispersed. When it sounded like they were all gone, the sniffling, shivering Natasha rose to her feet and pulled on her little bolero jacket. She was unsteady in her heels, in part from her distress and in part from the vodka she'd had from the flask in her purse before the fight. Natasha usually got drunk before these fights; it dulled the severity of what she saw. Usually. Not tonight.

She started to walk down the sidewalk toward the subway station, thinking that she would just get back to the bunker that way, when she heard his voice behind her.

"Natasha?" He sounded at once surprised and excited, and when she turned around Bane cocked his head and held his arms out expectantly. "Where did you go?"

"I… was sick." Natasha said, not entirely lying. "Sorry. That was… amazing."

"Wasn't it?" he confirmed, focusing on his compliment. "Why are you sick?" he finally asked, closing the distance between them in three steps. He had his flak jacket back on. He wore no coat, though it was February and still very cold.

"Too much to drink," Natasha told him, again telling only a partial truth.

Bane shook his head. He took Natasha's face in his hands, a little too tightly. "You're lying to me," he said, his voice artificially polite in tone, "which is a little irritating at the moment."

"That was extremely vicious, what you did in there," Natasha said, tears coming to her eyes.

"The world is a vicious place, Natasha. Why don't you write about it?"

She furrowed her brows and opened her mouth but had nothing to say to that. It was a very mean thing for him to say to her, she thought, especially since he'd been the one to give her the journal and encourage her to put pen to paper. Now he was mocking her need for an emotional outlet.

Bane lowered his hands from her face to interlace his fingers with hers. He took a big step backwards and pulled her with him.

"Come on," he said, "We're going home. You're not taking the damned subway."

Back in the bunker, Bane took Natasha to his room, and she fully expected him to ravage her the way he normally did after these fights. He usually would take her from behind, his hips slapping her bum until he exploded inside of her with a snarl, or he would be on top of her and stare in her eyes with frenzied wonder.

Tonight was different, though. He seemed to be pulsating with an electric energy. His body seemed to be humming, and his eyes were feverish.

"Are you all right?" she finally asked him. "You're… hyper."

"I would be better if you were hyper with me," Bane said, walking over to his dresser.

"I suppose you have a remedy for that," Natasha said with a sigh.

Bane rifled around anxiously in a drawer and pulled out a Ziploc of little white pills. "Right now, you are a buzz kill," he said. "And I will not allow you to bring me down."

"So instead you will encourage me to do drugs." Natasha raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms.

Bane put the baggie of pills back in the drawer and shut it. He walked over to Natasha and took her by the shoulders, looking her straight in the eye.

"I love you," he said breathlessly, and then Natasha knew he was on something, because he'd never said it before.

"Wow," she said, rather angrily. She shook her head.

"Wow?" Bane repeated. He stood up straight and released her shoulders. "Not exactly the response I was expecting."

"You choose to tell me this for the first time when you're high," Natasha spat, "and expect me to say it back?"

"I'm not high," Bane insisted, "on anything except adrenaline. Obviously what I did tonight did not excite you," Bane said matter-of-factly.

"Oh, I'm so sorry that I'm not aroused by the sight of a man's skull being crushed by your boot!" Natasha yelled, throwing her hands up.

Bane grabbed her outstretched wrists and wrapped them around the waist of his flak jacket, wrenching Natasha flush against him. She yelped.

"I want to be rough with you," he growled.

"That… is obvious," Natasha said, her voice muffled by Bane's flak jacket. "But don't you get enough of pounding me from behind after these fights?"

"Let's do something different, then," Bane said jaggedly, and he got the ball rolling by pulling Natasha's hand against his pants to show her that he was already hard. Of course he was, Natasha thought. He had probably been hard since he'd kicked a man to death.

She thought of any number of "different" things he could do to her tonight, the most radical involving her not being able to sit for a week. She rather felt like avoiding that option. She knew one way she could make him happy without a whole lot of effort required of him.

So she kicked off her heels and fell to her knees on the cold concrete floor, burying her face in the crook of where Bane's thigh met his pelvis. She nuzzled there, moaning wantonly into the fabric, breathing hot air through the thin material to warm his flesh.

"Ungh," she heard, his guttural reaction mechanical coming through the mask.

Natasha hurried to unbuckle Bane's belt and unbutton and unzip his pants. She pulled him out, elongated and rigid and aching for attention. She was about to wrap her hand around him and take him in her mouth, taking control of the situation herself, when she glanced up and saw the look in his eye.

He was staring down at her agitatedly, looking for all the world like a slab of raw authority. She knew he wanted it that way tonight. He'd said so, that he wanted to be rough. And she knew he liked to talk dirty, and hear her talk dirty, too. So she licked her lips while she locked him in her gaze, and she said in a hoarse voice,

"Fuck me in the mouth, Bane. Please."

He didn't need a second invitation. Bane clutched Natasha's head with both of his hands and drove himself into her mouth, thrusting himself down her throat as if he were using a sledgehammer. Natasha held onto him with her hand if for no reason other than aim, using her other hand to steady herself against his hip. She tried hard not to gag on him as he pistoned in and out of her gullet, much harder and faster than Natasha would have done it herself.

She struggled not to let her teeth touch his shaft while still maintaining contact with her lips, so her jaw got tired quickly. Just when she thought she was about to start crying, that she couldn't take it any more, and when she realized that she wasn't having any fun at all, Bane mercifully pulled out of her mouth. He stroked himself furiously a few times, and Natasha steeled herself. Bane watched in wonder and snarled loudly as his seed landed all over Natasha's face and hair.

He stood there panting for a long moment, clutching himself and seeming to absorb the sight before him, of Natasha covered in his essence, before realizing he should get a washrag for her. He lurched off to fetch one.

Natasha blinked through the viscous fluid and saw that her knees were bloody. She thought fleetingly that maybe she'd torn up her knees on the concrete floor while kneeling, but then saw Bane's bloodstained boots across the room and realized the gore had transferred onto her skin.

As she knelt submissively on the ground, covered in Bane's semen and Samby's blood, Natasha thought to herself that she'd never felt more dirty in her entire life.

Natasha's eyes snapped open from the most horrifying dream she'd ever had. She knew it to be that bad, that frightening, and yet… she couldn't remember a single detail of it. She wracked her brain, struggling to remember bits and pieces, but it was gone.

She rolled her head to the left but could see nothing in the pitch black of the windowless room. She reached for her cell phone and yanked it off its charger, pressing the power button to illuminate the screen. Using it like a flashlight, she made sure he was still there, beside her. As scared as she'd been of him last night, she was more scared right now of being alone.

He was sleeping on his side, facing away from her, so the light of her phone didn't wake him. What it did do was illuminate his scars. The damaged flesh that ran in thick lines down his spine was shiny in the light. She could see the scar and the knobs on the back of his jaw from where the other inmates had smashed the bone. She knew that affected his speech and caused him a lot of pain. It made her want to cry out of pity for him, thinking of him being attacked and beaten like that… until she thought of how many men he'd beaten himself. He'd had his revenge, and then some.

He'd not thought of her pleasure the night before like he usually did. After he'd plundered Natasha's mouth, Bane had peeled his mask off long enough to swig down some water and stripped for bed. He'd crashed from his wired state of being pretty quickly then and had fallen asleep on his back with Natasha curled up against him.

Now, Natasha couldn't get back to sleep. She tossed and turned a few times, rolling back and forth, and considered touching herself to solve the problem. If Bane could masturbate while she slept, why couldn't she do the same? Finally, her stirring caused Bane to slowly rotate and look at her with open eyes.

"What's the matter?" he asked, his voice far more bleary than its usually cutting self. He reached over to Natasha, blinking through the blue light of the cell phone screen. He laced his fingers in her hair and combed them through gently, stroking her scalp as he did. It felt good. Very good.

Natasha sighed. "I had a nightmare," she said simply.

"About what?" Bane asked.

"I have absolutely no idea," Natasha admitted.

Bane paused. "Then how do you know it was a nightmare?"

"I just know."

He raised his eyebrows and nodded skeptically. "What can I do to get you back to sleep, thus allowing myself to sleep?"

Natasha hesitated. "Make love to me," she said softly, reaching up to stroke his temple.

His laugh came through the mask filtered and mechanical. "Be careful what you wish for."

"I didn't say, 'Fuck me.' I said, 'Make love to me,'" Natasha clarified, her voice firm but her fingertips still gently touching Bane's face.

He scanned her eyes with his and processed what she meant. He nodded slowly.

He'd never really done that, Natasha didn't think – 'making love.' Probably in his entire life, he'd never 'made love.' He'd only screwed and pounded and fucked. Even with her, it was always fast. It was always hard. It was always a race to the finish. He did it in an animalistic way, primitive and simple. He did it in a way that seemed to take little thought or mental effort and was purely inborn. Nothing was learned; everything was centered on instinct. It was base and crude and rudimentary, and even – Natasha thought – unskilled. But it produced a climax, usually for both of them; whether too quickly or not was entirely debatable. In Bane's mind, she thought, that was the end-all, be-all of sex: its conclusion. He was so focused on the destination that he completely ignored the ride.

He'd never teased her, never denied her an orgasm, much less himself. She'd teased him, when she'd stripped and danced for him, and he'd seemed to like it – quite a bit, actually. Natasha knew if she could show Bane how to enjoy it, how to slow down and savor it, that he'd like it even better, and so would she.

She knew, of course, why it was that Bane fucked instead of making love. "Real men" did not do it slowly and sensually. They ravaged women. Men who hovered over their girlfriends and looked them in the eye as they rocked their hips slowly together were not "intimidating." A man who was intimidating would put a girl's feet on his shoulders and pound ruthlessly until she cried out for mercy – and even then, he might not stop.

And yet, tonight, Bane managed to prove himself both a real man and quite intimidating as he lingered above Natasha. The sight of his enamored eyes locking hers in an unflinching gaze, combined with the mask, was nothing short of daunting. The feel of his enormous girth sliding tortuously slowly in and out of her, mocking and taunting her with its ability to fill her up and then leave her empty, meant Bane was in complete control. Natasha fastened her ankles around Bane's slowly swaying waist and held onto his neck, but she still felt like at any moment she was going to fall into a vast nothingness if he let her.

It seemed to go on for hours. That's what it felt like to Natasha, though the clock on her phone passed only from 4:23 to 4:41. At that time, she finally fell over the edge into the abyss. She didn't cry out like she normally did, just compressed around him and panted for air, murmuring his name in a labored voice. When she'd come back to Earth, Natasha drew Bane's ear to her lips and whispered,

"If you can't finish like this, I understand…"

"I already did," he informed her uneasily. He pulled out of her but didn't climb off, choosing instead to roll onto his back and take her with him. He lay flush against the mattress and Natasha put her head on his rising and falling chest. Did she want this every time he touched her? No. That would become very boring very fast. But it would be nice every once in a while, and she told him so.

In response, he just took a very deep breath, twisted his fingers absentmindedly through Natasha's hair, and stared at the ceiling. In that instant, she knew he had liked it more than he was trying to let on. And she knew what he was thinking right now, too. He was thinking that, next time, he'd do that without the mask.

Before she could think any harder about it, Natasha was startled to a jolt by the tinny sound of Bane's phone ringing to his left. She was rather fond of the ringtone because he'd made it from a clip of "First of the Year" – the song to which she had stripped for him. She wasn't too fond of it at a quarter to five in the morning, though.

Bane grabbed the phone and pulled out the charging plug. He held it up to his ear to answer it. Natasha made a move to slide off of and away from him, but he wrapped his free arm around her and indicated she should stay lying on top of him.

"Yes?" Bane snapped into the phone, sounding weary and annoyed.

Natasha could just barely make out what was being said on the other end of the phone, but she managed to hear,

"Things are all screwed up outside Makeni. It's not going well." The man had a thick accent.

"Then fix it," Bane said rather harshly. "I've got more boots on the ground there than I care to dedicate. I just sent a brand-new arms shipment. Perhaps this is a failure of leadership, Mr. Turami."

"Sir, what we really need are more financial resources for the mine. It's not operating at capacity because the technology is not there -"

"It's not operating at capacity because the people involved are not working hard enough!" Bane shouted so loudly into the phone that Natasha scurried off of him and over to her side of the bed. He caught her wrist and didn't let go, but she refused to lie back down on top of him. Then his voice got dangerously quiet as he said into the phone, "I'm coming myself to oversee operations for a few days. I want to see with my own eyes what progress has been made."

There was silence on the other end of the line, and then the man said, "Of course, sir."

"Until tomorrow, then, Mr. Turami," Bane said, his voice falsely pleasant, and he hung up the phone. He reached to the table beside him and turned on the lamp, and then he released Natasha's wrist. "Pack your things," he told her plainly. "We're going on a little vacation."

"Where?" Natasha asked. "Where's Makeni?"

"Africa. Sierra Leone, specifically," Bane replied, as if he'd answered that it was in Wisconsin.

"And why are we flying half way around the world to 'oversee operations'?" Natasha demanded.

Bane stood and faced her, folding his thick arms. "I'll explain it all on the plane," he promised.

The plane turned out to be a Gulfstream G550. Bane and Natasha were accompanied by three of Bane's favorite brutes – bodyguards, allegedly, though Natasha couldn't see how Bane could possibly need a bodyguard. She figured they were mercenaries.

For once, Bane didn't wear his armored vest on the long flight to Sierra Leone. It sat next to his seat, ready to be strapped on at any moment. He wore a plain black t-shirt that stretched to fit over his mass and muscles, and camouflage cargo pants and suede work boots that gripped his ankles.

Natasha had clad herself in little denim shorts and walking sandals. She wore a simple yellow tank top and had her hair in pigtail braids. She wasn't sure what would be required of her physically, but she wanted to be prepared. Her summery outfit looked foolish as they left Gotham, but given that they were flying to Africa, Natasha felt pretty smart. Bane had wrapped his leather bomber jacket around her as they walked out to the plane in the hangar, and she had relished its manly scent.

Natasha wondered if they would get anything to eat on this long flight, so she'd thrown a box of Oreos in her tote bag, and a bottle of Dr. Pepper. Not the healthiest snacks in the world, but they would stave off hunger pangs.

By the time Bane had the plane ready to go, his men gathered at prepared, and his own things packed, it was ten o'clock. Natasha had been ready for hours. She was exhausted. She hadn't fallen asleep until probably 1:30 in the morning, and then had woken from her nightmare at about a 3:45. That wasn't much sleep, she thought, but then, she'd always been able to sleep on planes. This plane was different, though. The men on it were not ordinary airline passengers. They could keep anyone awake.

As the plane prepared for takeoff, Bane began explaining the purpose of their journey to Natasha.

"There's a man named Daggett. Let's call him an 'investor' in the plan," Bane said. His plush leather seat faced Natasha's so they could talk easily. "In fact, this is his plane. Daggett, in addition to being something of a construction magnate in Gotham – you've probably seen his name splattered on concrete mixers – owns some mines in West Africa."

Natasha nodded to indicate her understanding. Bane stared out the window as the runway whooshed by and the plane got airborne.

"I'm sure you're aware of the coup that happened in Sierra Leone two years ago. That wasn't a coincidence. Daggett and a few other miners had a bone to pick with the President, who was tightening restrictions on their diamond mining operations."

"What kind of restrictions?"

"Silly little things, like not using slave labor, environmental regulation, and paying export taxes on diamonds mined." Bane waved off the list he rattled. Natasha cocked an eyebrow and pursed her lips. "Anyway," Bane continued, "It was rather cutting into Daggett's profits. He needed a change in leadership. So he hired me, among others, to… initiate and facilitate a revolution, if you will."

"Indeed," Natasha looked at Bane with feigned calmness in her voice and eyes.

"When the coup was successful and the guerilla war won, Daggett was free to expand his operations and pay me handsomely. Those resources have gone primarily toward investment in a nuclear energy source that we believe can be converted into a bomb."

"And why are you still involved in Africa, if the coup is over?" Natasha asked.

"For Daggett to keep feeding us money and resources, which we need for another part of the plan, we have to keep his profits up. We have to keep him happy. That means ensuring his mining operations are successful. When I get a phone call at a quarter to five in the morning telling me that the mining operations are not successful, well… I get on a plane."

He sat back and relaxed in his seat, seeming to indicate that he was done with his explanation. Natasha thought she understood everything. The part he hadn't explained, but had implied, was that the point of this trip was to go show the leadership of the mines that they needed to work a little harder. Bane would rough them up, she thought, or worse. And he wanted to do it himself so badly that he was flying thousands of miles to do it. What baffled her was that he was taking her with him. That was the part she didn't understand. Why was she needed on this trip?

This morning, Natasha had thought maybe she'd be working on this trip. Maybe she'd be doing some espionage, like she did in Gotham. Now she began to suspect she was on the trip because Bane was so protective – possessive – that he hadn't wanted to leave her behind. She decided to find out.

"So how do I fit into this puzzle?" she asked. "Why am I here? Arm candy?"

"No," Bane said simply. He reached into one of the pockets of his cargo pants and pulled out a few little stones. He held out his hand to Natasha, revealing four large, sparkling diamonds. "You're the market," Bane said. "You're here to make a large, anonymous purchase of raw stones. No taxes."

"Using whose money?" Natasha pressed, narrowing her eyes.

"Another friend of ours, another investor. He knows nothing of Daggett's involvement."

"So this is insider trading, basically, and you get the profits." Natasha bit her lip.

Bane nodded once, theatrically.

"If you have such access to diamonds, how come you never get me any diamond jewelry?" Natasha teased, smiling crookedly at him.

"Because there is one piece of diamond jewelry that women want far too much, and that you should never expect from me," Bane told her, tucking the stones back in his pocket.

Natasha sighed deeply, giving him a weak little smile. She unbuckled her seat belt and rose from her seat.

"Where are you going?" Bane asked. He sounded faintly nervous, as if he feared he'd royally angered her with his last comment. But Natasha brushed her fingers against his shoulder as she began to walk away, looking down at him.

"I didn't get much sleep," she told him, and she walked down the aisle to the rear of the plane, where there was a bed made up. She kicked off her shoes and gratefully tucked herself into it, falling asleep almost instantaneously despite the loud conversation the men were having in the main cabin.

She had her nightmare again, and this time she remembered it when she woke. She was in the boxing ring, fighting Bane, and he was basically beating her to smithereens. Then he hoisted her above his head and flung her to the ground and stomped on her skull. Natasha startled awake, tears streaming down her cheeks.

As she slowly sat up, she heard running footsteps approaching and saw Bane come crashing through the curtain into the berthing area.

"What the hell is going on?" he said loudly, looking around frantically. He had his trusty 9 mm Glock drawn.

"What?" Natasha cried. "Put that away right this instant!"

Bane seemed to be searching the berthing area with his eyes, and when he was confident it was empty except for Natasha, he holstered his gun. He crouched in front of the bed.

"Why did you scream?" he asked, more gently than she would have expected.

"I had a nightmare," Natasha told him.

"Again?" He reached to take Natasha's hands in his, but she involuntarily flinched and recoiled from him. Bane got a knowing look in his eye and nodded. "Did I happen to feature in this nightmare?"

"You were somewhat the star," Natasha told him. She forced herself to reach out and touch his face. "But it was just a dream."

Sort of, she thought to herself. She'd only substituted herself for Samby. It wasn't as though Bane were in reality some benevolent, gentle giant who wouldn't hurt a fly. He was a monster; she recognized that. But he was her monster, and he would never… would he?

"You can stomp all the heads in the world, Bane, but don't stomp mine," Natasha told him.

Bane narrowed his eyes. "You and Talia are the only two people in the entire world that need not fear me," he told her. He clapped his hand behind her head and squeezed her hair gently. "Go back to sleep. I'll sit right here if you want me to."

Natasha marveled at his sudden kindness, and also his radical volatility. He'd come charging to the back of the cabin, gun drawn, and was now situating himself with his back against the wall and Natasha's head in his lap.

She nuzzled herself against his stomach and picked at the fabric of his cargo pants until she felt herself drifting off to sleep again. The ebb and flow of Bane's breathing mingled with the steady white noise of the plane's engines. Natasha hadn't yet delved into the realm of dreams when she heard a man's voice very clearly ask,

"Everything all right back…" the man grew quieter. "Sorry," he murmured. "We thought maybe you were joining the mile-high club."

"So you thought barging through the curtain to confirm your suspicions was the best course of action?" Bane asked skeptically. His hand absentmindedly petted Natasha's head.

The other man was silent. "I guess not…" he finally admitted.

"Remind me to show you why not when this plane lands," Bane sneered. "Get out. I don't want anyone back here for the rest of the flight."

There were footsteps and then stillness, and Natasha could only imagine that the man was gone. She raised her eyes to meet Banes and grinned at him.

"The mile-high club?" she repeated.

"It's where people -"

"Yeah, I know what it is," Natasha laughed, cutting him off. "You just don't seem like the kind of person to become a member on a plane with other people on board."

"Well, maybe on the way back to Gotham," he said, and Natasha knew he was smiling. "Something tells me that's going to be a private flight."

She gulped, her own smile disappearing. She tucked her head back into Bane's lap and squeezed the fabric of his shirt. She didn't feel like asking exactly how they were going to lose three people in Sierra Leone.

The flight was interminable. Even with sleeping, eating, and watching movies, the sixteen-hour flight seemed to never end. At one point, Natasha looked at Bane while they sat across a table from one another playing cards. She kicked off her sandal and rubbed her foot against his calf under the table. She smirked seductively at him and licked her top lip, but it was to no avail. Bane chuckled into the mask and shook his head.

"We're almost there," he promised.

"Define that, please," Natasha huffed impatiently.

"An hour and a half."

"That's plenty of time," she noted. "More than enough time."

"As I said," he told her, "There will be plenty of time and space and privacy for that on the way home."

Natasha grumbled for a minute but said no more about it. They landed at the dusty little airport in Makeni at about eight in the morning local time. Natasha had rested plenty on the flight, but Bane had not, and she thought he had to be tired. He didn't look it though, not even a little bit.

He stepped confidently off the plane, holding Natasha's shoulder firmly in front of him as she descended the stairs. There were two yellow Land Rovers waiting at the airport for them, and Bane tossed their bags into the back of one, gesturing for his three goons to take the second car. He, naturally, took the driver's seat, acting for all the world like he knew exactly where he was going.

When Bane cranked on the ignition, the crackly radio turned on in the Land Rover, and Natasha was treated to the ironic stylings of Tiken Jah Fakoly's "Political War." Bane, too, caught the paradox between the song and his presence, and he quickly shut off the radio. Natasha buckled herself into the Land Rover, anticipating a bumpy ride. Indeed, the streets of Makeni were rocky and sooty, and Natasha marveled at the strangeness of it all. Bane seemed unfazed by the horrified stares he got as his Land Rover rumbled by. The people didn't seem shocked by his presence so much as dismayed by it. It was as if they knew this man as a warlord and terrorist returned to their land – what atrocities to commit, they did not know.

The Land Rovers rumbled outside of town and drove for what seemed like an eternity into the wilderness. Bane didn't talk much during the ride, but he coughed every once in a while, and Natasha could only imagine that the dust on the road was irritating his damaged lungs and clogging up his mask. The trucks followed a rough-hewn trail through forests and over hills and across terrifyingly decrepit bridges. Finally, they arrived at a huge pit with a wooden station of some kind on its precipice. Standing outside the station were two men who scared the daylights out of Natasha.

The African guards wore basketball shorts and tattered t-shirts, and had hair shaved close to the scalp. One of them was really a boy; he seemed to be no older than twelve or thirteen. The automatic rifle to which he clung so protectively seemed to overwhelm him in size. His feet were bare and covered in the mud and muck surrounding him. When he caught a glimpse of the approaching Bane, there was terror in his eyes that belied his heavily armed state. The other man was older, perhaps twenty, and looked cocky and over-confident.

Natasha took a shaking breath and tried to steel herself for what she would see here. She knew they'd come to one of the mines. She heard the rushing of water behind the men and thought there must be a waterfall or a river. Curiously, she opened her car door, but Bane caught her wrist to stop her.

"Do nothing," he said quietly, "Unless I tell you to. Say nothing unless asked a question. Walk behind me."

Natasha raised her eyebrows and sighed at the demand for such submissiveness, but she knew it was for her own safety, if for nothing else. So she shut the door of the Land Rover and waited.

Bane got out of the car and walked assertively up to the guards. He seemed to be talking to them calmly for a minute, though all Natasha could hear was the chirping of birds and the buzzing of insects. After a long moment in which Natasha barely breathed, Bane stalked back to Natasha's side of the Land Rover. He opened her door and helped her out, gesturing for her to follow him. He nodded at his three "bodyguards", who followed, as well. When the party reached the guards again, the two men stepped aside and Bane opened the creaky wooden door into the station.

Natasha cautiously followed him inside. Her eyes adjusted to the low light in the cabin-like structure. A cutout window revealed a hill down to mining operations in a muddy ravine. In the gulley, Natasha could see dozens of shirtless men working the mine, looking run-down and overworked for the most part. They stood knee-deep in sludge, shaking sieves while stooped over beneath the intense West African sun.

Natasha thought the war in Sierra Leone had ended in 2002. She knew about the Kimberley Process, the agreement with many signatories that was supposed to clean up the trade of "blood diamonds" and help consumers know that their stones were clean. But this was not clean mining, and her purchase of stones from mines like this would not be clean trade. What Bane was asking her to do was to purchase raw stones here in Sierra Leone, stones that had been mined under brutal conditions that hearkened back to the civil war. She would then smuggle the stones back to America, where Kimberley documents would be falsified to certify them as being clean. They would enter the market without ever having paid taxes or levies, without middlemen… except for Bane, who would pocket an obscene profit from the transaction and funnel it into his master plan.

Natasha's scruples would have gotten the best of her, but she knew there was no backing out now.

She stared out the window at where the men slaved away in the alluvial quarry, overseen by young men armed with AK-47s like the guards outside the station. She was jolted back to her senses by the sound of Bane's voice addressing the only other person in the room, a lone man standing against the far wall.

"Mr. Turami," Bane said, "What a pleasure it is to finally meet again."

"Indeed, sir… welcome back to Africa." The man held out his arms in a gesture of hospitality.

"May I introduce our newest customer, Miss Natasha Lemov?" Bane placed his hand gently on Natasha's back and urged her forward an inch. Natasha hesitantly extended her hand and Turami shook it just as cautiously.

"Very pleased to know you, Miss Lemov," he said nervously.

"And now, let us do away with niceties." Bane took Natasha's shoulder and pulled her back behind him. His voice grew suddenly harsh. "What was the production of this mine in the last twelve months, Mr. Turami?" Turami gulped and said nothing. Bane surged forward and shoved Turami against the wooden wall by his shoulders, slamming the smaller man so hard that Natasha startled. "Answer me!" Bane demanded.

"Three hundred and ninety-two carats," Turami murmured, his voice terrified.

Bane let him go and took three steps back. "Three hundred and ninety-two," he repeated calmly. "That is less than one-third of the production goal."

"The diamonds simply are not there, sir."

"They are!" Bane hissed. "We know they are. You're not looking in the right places; you're not using the right techniques. You're not allocating resources properly. Your men outside are too high to do their job properly. You're spending more money on heroin than you are on mining technology."

"No, sir, please. The mine will increase production!"

"It will," Bane agreed, "without you." He pulled out his handgun and unloaded six rounds into Turami's chest and abdomen. Natasha covered her ears and stared, horrified, as Turami slunk down the wall into a bleeding heap on the floor. Bane turned back to Natasha and gave her an apologetic look.

"Well," Natasha said meekly, her eyes brimming with tears, "I think you got him."


	4. Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dancer

**Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dancer**

* * *

**A/N: I've had a question or two about who I envision as Natasha in this story. The visual inspiration for her is a model named Ewa Tulacz from Poland. Enjoy and PLEASE review so I know if I'm on the right course! Thanks for any and all feedback and thanks for reading.**

Natasha stepped through the door of the seedy nightclub in Freetown, Sierra Leone and was immediately overwhelmed by the smoke. The noisy reggae music pummeled her ears and violently sporadic strobe lights assaulted her eyes. She turned anxiously to Bane and wondered how he could possibly handle this environment. His breathing apparatus was probably struggling through the dense air, and she happened to know that Bane did not enjoy a "club-like" atmosphere in the slightest.

Natasha felt like she looked like a complete scandal tonight, but that was how Bane had told her to dress – "Just go back to your dancing days," he'd said. So Natasha had gone to a cheap store in Freetown and bought a set of metallic red hot pants and a matching bandeau top that barely covered her chest. She wore enormous gold hoop earrings and pale, pearlescent lip-gloss. Her eyes were heavily lined with black kohl and there was glitter at her temples. She'd straightened her hair into perfect smoothness that reached the middle of her back.

Bane, for his part, looked like his ordinary self in his black cargo pants and flak jacket. When he walked into the nightclub, guiding Natasha by the shoulder, many eyes turned to him. It was impossible to tell over the roar of the music whether or not conversations stopped, but Natasha could only assume that they had. The look of awe blended with fear on people's faces at seeing _this man_ walk into _their club_ was undeniable. Bane demonstrated no feedback to this reception. He just tromped through the main room of the club through a solid black door with Natasha in tow.

She'd been told that they were coming to this club for a very important meeting. It was time, Bane said, to negotiate the sale of the raw diamonds from the administrator of the mining operations. Natasha had already anonymously secured the stones themselves and one of the goons had handed over the actual cash – quite a lot of it – but what was left to be resolved was what cut Bane would take. Natasha began to suspect that pretty much anybody could have conducted the actual transaction. She'd been brought here to sweeten the deal.

This club, the club to which Bane had brought her tonight, did not really fit the definition of a "nightclub," or even a "strip club." It really seemed like more of a "sex palace" to Natasha, which scared the daylights out of her for a meeting place. The main dance stage in the center of the room had neon tube lights around its perimeter and a pole in the middle. A banged-up reflective floor replicated the image of the African woman twirling herself around the peg. She was completely nude, and she was touching herself in a way Natasha had never done when she was dancing.

So it was with more than mild trepidation that Natasha allowed herself to be sashayed back into what seemed like a Champagne Room. Just before Bane pushed through the black door, he turned to Natasha and lowered his mask to her ear. Just loud enough for her to barely hear him over the blasting reggae, he said,

"Just so you know, our relationship is that I've bought you for the evening."

Natasha scrunched her brow in horror and anger. She pulled back from Bane and looked him in the eye through the darkness. "What?" she demanded, but Bane just took her by the shoulder and gently pushed her through the black door.

She was perplexed. Would Bane really make her pretend to be a prostitute, just to maximize his profits? She knew what he would tell her: 'It's all for the good of the plan.' But she knew what she'd tell him right back, with a slap to his cheek. That would sting awfully badly for her, though.

The room beyond the black door was perhaps ten feet by ten feet, and the outer walls were lined with plush black divans. The walls were cobalt blue with large mirrors, and the room was illuminated only by a few dim lamps. Two men sat on the divans, looking quite relaxed. One was a large white man in a pale button-down shirt and dark dress pants. He had slicked-back black hair and a goatee. The other man was African, and he too wore a suit without the jacket. Natasha thought that compared to these businessmen, she and Bane were horribly underdressed.

"My friend," the white man said, pushing himself off the divan to stand and extend a hand to Bane. "My lady," he said more lasciviously, eyeing Natasha with hunger and giving her a little nod.

"Natasha, this is Arnold de Nooijer, and his associate Peter Matambo from South Africa." Bane gestured to the men but did not shake de Nooijer's hand. De Nooijer lowered it awkwardly. "Gentlemen, allow me to introduce my new friend Natasha." The lilt in his voice that was most present when he was at his most dangerous was strong. He spoke slowly, carefully, and clearly. This room was much quieter than the booming room outside.

"A lovely name for a lovely girl," Peter Matambo said. "What can I get you to drink, Natasha?"

She flicked her eyes over to Bane, uncertain as to whether or not she was supposed to drink at this little soiree. He chuckled and said,

"You've already had two vodka and tonics; would you like to go get another of those?"

Natasha plastered a smile on her face. It wasn't true at all; she'd had nothing to drink all night. But it was Bane's way of telling her to leave the room for a moment to go get a drink and leave the men to talk. "What can I get anyone else?" she asked politely.

"Bring back a bottle of whiskey and a few shot glasses, dear," de Nooijer told her, taking out a bill and tucking it shamelessly into the waistband of her hot pants. Natasha struggled to keep from slapping him when she felt his fingertips brush her buttocks, and she resisted the urge to look to Bane to defend her honor. She felt Bane's fingers tighten a bit on her shoulder and then release her.

"Of course," Natasha grinned, gritting her teeth manically. She nearly fled the room in her haste to get away from the slimy de Nooijer, and she stepped anxiously up to the bar to order the drinks. The bartender seemed hesitant to sell her a full bottle of whiskey. She explained that they were in a private meeting room. Still, the bartender said,

"One drink at a time." Natasha knew he could make more money that way. Finally, she said loudly,

"It's for Bane."

That did the trick. The bartender immediately grabbed a large bottle of Jameson 18 Year and handed it carefully to Natasha. "On the house," he insisted when Natasha tried to hand him de Nooijer's bill. She left it on the bar anyway. She had nowhere to hide it, and she certainly wasn't going to give it back to the Dutchman.

When Natasha reached the black door again, she could hear the men excitedly talking inside. She pressed her ear against the door before entering to make sure she didn't walk in at an awkward moment.

"No more than three million, my friend. That's my final offer," she heard de Nooijer say.

"I don't know that you're in a position to be making a final offer, Mr. de Nooijer," Bane retorted.

"Are you threatening us?" Matambo demanded.

"Why, yes, I am," Bane said politely. "Think over my… request. Three-seven-fifty. And in return, a conduit to Kimberley-free trading in the United States. A watercourse of commerce open only to my associates and myself… and, if you would like, to you, my brothers." There was a pause. "Think it over," he said again. "I think you will see the benefits of this agreement far outweigh any other potential negotiation."

"Maybe your hot little whore can talk me into it," de Nooijer said snidely.

"That was rather the idea," Bane agreed after a pause. "You can look, but you can't touch, gentlemen."

"Where's the fun in that?" Matambo demanded. "What's the matter, Bane? Can't share your toys?"

Sensing she had been gone long enough, and horrified by the turn the conversation had taken, Natasha pushed through the black door until it was a few inches open.

"May I come back in?" she asked courteously.

"Of course," Bane said, too enthusiastically. "We were just talking about you."

"My ears were ringing," Natasha said with a smile, setting the bottle of whiskey down on the table in the middle of the room.

"Twenty American dollars bought you _that_?" de Nooijer asked skeptically, raising his eyebrows. "Who'd you have to blow -"

"You'd make an excellent cocktail waitress, Natasha," Bane interjected, cutting off the Dutchman's obscene question.

"Where's your vodka tonic?" Matambo asked.

"Thought I'd share the whiskey," Natasha said, having forgotten entirely about her own drink.

De Nooijer grinned and laughed wickedly. "I like a girl who can shoot whiskey," he said to Bane. He poured three shots, handing one to his compatriot and one to Natasha. "_Proost_!" he exclaimed, holding up his shot glass before downing the amber liquid.

Natasha caught Bane's eye before doing the same. She managed to shoot him a look that told him she was not amused. Truth be told, she hated whiskey. She hated how bitter and biting it was, and it made her want to vomit to shoot it like she was doing. But maybe being buzzed would dull the disgust she was likely to feel in the upcoming minutes and hours, she thought.

Indeed, within ten minutes de Nooijer and Matambo had drunk so much whiskey that Natasha was more afraid of them passing out than touching her. They used the wall stereo controls to crank up the music in the room, and started talking awfully loudly about soccer.

Bane sat to their right with his arms spread across the divan, sighing heavily every once in a while and giving monosyllabic responses to trivial questions they asked him to keep him engaged in the conversation. Natasha, meanwhile, tried to laugh at their jokes and say funny things, though she knew absolutely nothing of soccer or business. De Nooijer and Matambo bobbed their heads to the music and grinned idiotically at Natasha. Bane looked like he was far above all this nonsense, like this was an out-of-control prom and he was the exasperated chaperone.

Finally, when the men were drunk enough, they gathered the courage to get what they'd come in the room for.

"How about a dance, Natasha?" de Nooijer suggested, though he made it clear to Natasha that it was far more than a suggestion. She was standing in front of him, and he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her down so she was kneeling on either side of his lap. To his right and out of Natasha's peripheral vision, Bane sprang forward, his hands gripping his knees when de Nooijer swathed Natasha. "Relax, Bane," de Nooijer said with a laugh. "No sex in the Champagne Room, right?" He turned back to Natasha, looking up at her with bleary, drunken eyes. "Dance for me, sweetheart."

Natasha felt her blood boil and her ears grow hot with anger. She'd had customers like this when she'd danced – men who grabbed and touched when they weren't supposed to. That's why there had been bouncers. In this room, though, there was only Bane to protect her, and he was trying to conduct a hefty business transaction with these men. So she wrapped her arms around de Nooijer's neck and began grooving her hips and chest to the sway of the reggae. She gave him the most seductive look she could muster. To her right, she heard Matambo give a little catcall when she started moving on de Nooijer. To her left, Bane's eyes were furious. But wasn't this exactly what he'd brought Natasha here to do? He couldn't have his cake and eat it, too, she thought.

De Nooijer put his hand behind Natasha's head and drew her in close to him. Fearing he was going to try to kiss her, Natasha resisted slightly, but he pulled harder so that her ear was next to his lips.

"Get those clothes off, darling," he said, his voice silky. He moved his hands to Natasha's waist and urged her down onto his lap, where, disgusted, Natasha felt the lump of his erection against her hot pants. Feeling helpless, Natasha criss-crossed her arms in front of her chest and peeled off her red metallic bandeau top, deliberately tossing it to her left so it would land on the divan next to Bane. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him reach for it and clutch it tight in his hand.

Natasha had been topless for men before as a dancer, but she'd never felt so bare as to be shirtless in front of strangers with Bane in the room. She could practically feel the rage radiating from him. She feared that at any moment he would explode, that he would kill these men and ruin the deal and create havoc in the nightclub.

So she hovered her breasts for a moment near de Nooijer's spellbound eyes and smiled down at his face, then said, "Mind if I work the room a bit, Mr. de Nooijer?"

He shook his head no, gesturing for her to take her leave.

First, Natasha went to Matambo. She danced before him, wriggling to the reggae blasting on the stereo, and writhed out of her hot pants. As she stood back up, she tossed her long hair over her head, now clad in just a black mesh thong.

Matambo looked over at de Nooijer and the two men gave each other a mental high-five. Feeling as though she'd accomplished what she needed to with the two of them, Natasha proceeded to Bane. She sidled up alongside him and swept an arm across his chest, turning his head so he was looking her in the eye.

She stroked his biceps gently with her fingers, knowing he liked to have his arms touched, and engaged his eyes in a stare that communicated nothing but absolute and unconcealed desire.

Natasha pushed herself up onto her knees and leaned in to Bane's neck and planted a few gentle kisses. She could feel de Nooijer's and Matambo's eyes hot on her, jealously watching as she gave Bane more attention than she'd given either one of them. Sensing that she needed to return to the businessmen, she put her lips against Bane's ear and whispered fervently,

"I love you."

Saying those words served several purposes. It would demonstrate to Bane that she was just putting on a show with the other men; that she wanted him so much more than she could ever want those two smarmy characters. It would calm him and make him less likely to strike out violently. Indeed, after she whispered it, she heard him intake breath quickly and saw his eyes shut for a moment, as if lost in transient bliss.

More importantly than anything else, though, it was the truth, and Natasha thought it was high time he knew it.

She danced for five more minutes before de Nooijer finally looked over at Bane and said beatifically, "All right, Bane. You've got me. Three million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Yours. You can thank Natasha here."

"Don't worry. I will," Bane said simply. He nodded at de Nooijer and Matambo and shook their hands. "I will expect the funds in the Swiss account tomorrow. I'll not leave town until the transfer is confirmed. I'll expect you won't, either. Do not disappoint me, gentlemen. I trust," he cocked his chin toward the nearly nude Natasha, "that I have not disappointed you."

De Nooijer and Matambo quickly stood and put their jackets on, mumbling thanks and farewells to Bane and Natasha. They stumbled drunkenly out of the room, Natasha grinning and waving behind them. When they'd gone, she turned back to Bane, her smile vanishing. She sighed heavily. He reached for the wall controls of the stereo and turned them down so they could talk comfortably.

"I can't believe you made me do that," Natasha wailed, throwing her hands up. "That was disgusting! And now I'm drunk, Bane; they made me have, like, six shots of whiskey!" She only now heard in her voice how slurred her words were, and realized how difficult standing was. She'd fought through it to dance, but now the effects of the alcohol were kicking in with full force.

"Are you going to be sick?" Bane asked, cocking his head.

"I don't think so," she answered quietly.

"Good. Come here," he said, patting the divan next to him. It didn't even occur to Natasha to put on her bandeau top or hot pants before snuggling up next to Bane. "You're a good girl," he told her, stroking her hair. "You did a very good job."

"You got your money," Natasha agreed bitterly. "Mission accomplished."

Bane unzipped one of his zipper pants pockets and pulled out a little box, cracking it open with his fingers and holding it out to Natasha. She gasped. Inside were the most beautiful earrings Natasha had ever seen, glittering against a black velvet background.

"Not the piece you were looking for, I know, but these will have to do," Bane said.

Natasha took the box from him in wonder. The earrings were perfectly clear, round diamonds set in what was obviously platinum. The stones were easily a carat and a half each. Dripping from each diamond was a substantial, teardrop shaped ruby. Natasha calculated quickly. In the U.S., earrings like these would likely cost $30,000. She doubted Bane had had to pay that much for them, but, still, they had cost him a pretty penny.

Or they had cost someone his life, she thought with a pit in her stomach.

Natasha looked up at Bane and grinned more widely than she had in quite some time. She giggled like a little girl as tears came to her eyes.

"I feel so ridiculously shallow, letting something like earrings get me this excited," she said, "but it's not just that they're so beautiful. It's that you cared enough to get them for me." She bit her lip and whispered, "Thank you."

"Put them on for me," Bane instructed her.

"Shouldn't I get dressed first? My outfit matches the rubies, after all," she noted.

"No. I like you better wearing nothing but my jewels," Bane insisted.

Natasha smirked. She eagerly took out her gold hoops and laid them on the black divan, carefully putting on the screw-back earrings. She tucked her hair behind her ears and raised her head to Bane, flashing him a captivating smile. "How do they look?" she asked, posing for him.

"You look," he said, placing a trembling hand flat against her cheek, "more beautiful than the sun setting over a calm sea."

Natasha had no good answer to that. She smiled self-consciously and lowered her eyes from his, murmuring a clumsy 'thank-you' and rising to put on her clothes. She pulled her bandeau top back over her chest and began stretching her hot pants back over her legs. As she was arranging herself, facing away from Bane, she heard him ask,

"Did you mean it, Natasha?"

She knew exactly what he was referencing, but, even so, she cleared her throat and said nonchalantly, "Mean what?"

Bane hesitated. "That you love me."

She turned back around and faced him. She could practically feel her new jewels glittering at her earlobes. "Did _you_ mean it?" she pressed, "When you said it after the fight?"

"Of course I did," Bane nodded. "I chose a stupid time to tell you."

"Well, I very much meant it, too," Natasha said quietly, looking down at herself and making final adjustments to her skimpy outfit.

There was something of an awkward silence as Bane stared at his knees. Then he cleared his throat and said fairly severely, "No one has ever said those three words to me in my _entire life_, Natasha, not even Talia. So if you didn't mean it, you'd better retract your statement. Those aren't words to throw around lightly."

"Bane!" Natasha exclaimed, striding to stand before him and taking his face in her hands. "I have never meant any words more." She crouched down so her face was even with his. She began planting kisses on every scrap of skin she could reach – his exposed cheek, his forehead, his neck, his hand – and murmured it again. "I love you."

He rose and took her by the hand, leading her from the little room. Natasha was so glad to get out of the club that she completely forgot her gold hoops on the divan. She wouldn't realize that until the next morning.

They took a terrifying taxi ride back to their shady hotel. Natasha began to feel queasy from the combination of the alcohol and perilous driving. When she and Bane returned to their hotel room, she closed the bathroom door and was sick for twenty minutes, tying her hair back and retching until her abdominal muscles were so sore she wanted to cry. Ten minutes into the ordeal, Bane knocked on the door and tentatively asked,

"Is there… anything you need me to do?"

"No," Natasha insisted, turning back to the ancient toilet. "Thank you."

She heard him a few minutes later talking on his cell phone. "Three seven-fifty," he was saying. "I think about three of that will go into the project with Wayne. The rest is needed for other expenses. Weapons, construction, food. Things you don't have to worry about in your cushy little penthouse, Talia."

The fact that Bane was on the phone with Talia made Natasha want to retch even more, thinking about the fact that he'd had sex with her in the time that they'd been 'on a break.' She squinted angrily into the toilet and listened.

"Yes. I told her almost a week ago." Bane's voice had grown quiet, and Natasha struggled to hear him. There was a long pause. "She said it back." Another pause. "Tonight." More silence, longer this time. "I don't think so, Talia; I did something that would make even you furious."

Natasha wondered if he was talking about her, about making her dance for de Nooijer and Matambo. For some reason, she wanted Bane to know she could hear him. She flushed the toilet and waited to run the sink.

"I have to go, Talia. I'll call you tomorrow."

Natasha brushed her teeth four times. She peeled off her red metallic outfit. It was a reminder of dancing for the Dutchman and the South African, and she wanted nothing more of it. She stepped into the shower to wash not only the smell of cigarette smoke off, but also the feel of the unctuous men. This had been a ritual when she'd been a dancer: coming home after a long night and washing the revulsions away in a swirl of froth that disappeared magically down a drain.

She sang quietly as she washed her hair. The first song that came to her mind was "_Le Festin_" from a Pixar movie called_Ratatouille._

"_Rien n'est gratuit dans la vie_,"Natasha sang in a gentle voice – 'Nothing in life is free.'

As she began to lather up her body with soap, she startled wildly. The curtain of the square tiled stall had whipped open to her left. With an alarmed squeal, Natasha dropped the bar of soap and flew back against the wall of the shower, nearly slipping in the process.

In the opening of the shower stood Bane, naked except for his mask and the buckled belt bracing his back. He presumptuously stepped inside the shower and closed the curtain behind him, essentially taking up the entire shower stall with his mass. He moved in reverse against the wall and pulled Natasha under the flow of the water, cradling her head against his sternum while the stream caressed her back. She looked up at him, wide-eyed, her hands pressed to his collarbone. The mist from the shower was getting his mask wet, but he didn't seem to mind. She supposed she'd seen him in the rain with it on, but she'd never considered him wearing it in the shower.

"I didn't realize you could sing," Bane noted, and his strange voice echoed eccentrically in the tiled chamber. "You have an exquisite voice."

"I was mumbling," Natasha laughed under her breath.

"Sing for me," he commanded imperiously. "That song you were singing."

"It's a Disney song," Natasha giggled.

"I liked it."

"_Jamais on ne me dira que la course aux étoiles; ça n'est pas pour moi_." Natasha rocked gently against Bane as she intoned the French words. She kissed his skin, wet from the shower water and glossy in its hairlessness, and trailed her fingertips down his chest and over his abdomen. Her hand reached the organ between his legs that was beginning to harden and stroked gently with soap-slicked fingertips. She was dizzy and disoriented; throwing up hadn't cured her intoxication.

"_Laissez-moi vous émerveiller et prendre mon en vol…_" Natasha purred the words against his flesh and touched him affectionately, wrapping her left hand around him to stroke his flank.

Before she could finish the musical phrase, Bane had seized her by the waist and hoisted her up onto his hips. His leather brace dug into the bottoms of Natasha's thighs, but his arms wrapped tightly around her back to hold her close to him. He rotated nimbly in the shower, facing the back wall so that the stream of water landed in the slender space between their bodies. Bane pushed Natasha's shoulders against the tile wall and braced his feet between the two sides of the shower for balance, entering her in one powerful thrust. He drove into her for a few minutes, and her cries echoed boisterously against the tiles. She reached out against the enameled walls for support, but her hands slid desperately off the wet smoothness.

At some point when she had no idea what was going on, Bane shut off the water and stepped out of the shower with Natasha still latched onto him. He lumbered out into the bedroom area of the cramped hotel room and plopped the dripping, nude Natasha down onto the bed. She moaned his name and put her hands on her breasts, writhing on the bed and squirming around distractedly.

Bane seized her hips and dragged them to the edge of the high bed, urging her knees apart and entering her again. He leaned on the mattress for support, hovering over Natasha as she clutched at his biceps with her little hands and gripped his thighs between her calves. She gasped and pleaded for more as he pitched against her, so after a while he captured her knees. He moved her feet up onto his pectorals and bent Natasha's legs back onto her own chest. She clamped her legs together so she was tighter around him, and he thrust so deeply into her that she nearly screeched his name as she coursed her hands up and down his thighs. She came hard, sobbing and breathless, and he followed soon after. He collapsed into the bed and hoisted her up beside him, letting her contract into a pillow and nestle under the blanket.

She drunkenly murmured words that neither of them could understand, which made him chuckle as he stroked her wet hair. She shut her eyes but felt Bane's fingertips caressing her earlobes, where her fancy new earrings sparkled.

"Thank you," she whispered again, and she hoped he understood that she meant that for the jewels as well as for the sex. Bane sighed heavily. "Whassamatter?" Natasha asked, her voice hoarse from bawling his name over and again.

"Absolutely nothing at all," Bane replied, and he touched his fingertips to the mask and then to her forehead.

"I love you," Natasha murmured as she fell asleep. She didn't get the chance to hear whether or not he said it back, but she hoped that he did. Her sleep would have been unspoiled and unbroken, if not for what Bane had said on the phone. Consequently, she was disturbed by one question: What had Bane done that was so awful even Talia would be furious?

Natasha began to find out what it was that Bane had done the next morning. There were wails of sirens outside her hotel window, rising anxiously in pitch as they approached. Natasha's first thought upon hearing the sirens was that someone was coming for them, so she sprang out of bed and darted over to the window. She completely forgot that she was still naked from the night before. She instantly felt Bane's arm wrap around her waist and hoist her back from the sill.

"Are you crazy?" he demanded. "Get away from there!"

But Natasha wanted to see. Bane strategically placed himself with his back to the wall beside the window, Glock at the ready. He peeked around the shutter to see outside to assess the situation. Automatic gunfire began to bang outside the window, sounding like popcorn in a microwave. Bane sighed.

"Throw on clothes as quickly as you can. Grab your cell phone. Make sure you're wearing your new earrings."

"Are we running away?" Natasha asked worriedly.

"Remember how I told you we'd have a private flight home?" Bane reminded her, flicking his eyes to her. She nodded. "This is how that happens."

Natasha felt her veins run cold. She dashed around the room, trying to stay out of view of the window. She threw on a purple tennis dress and white athletic shoes, and she hastily tied her hair back in a low ponytail. Her hands trembled fiercely as she heard the gunfire, but she moved more quickly than she thought possible. Meanwhile, Bane strapped on his bulletproof vest and zipped on a leather motorcycle jacket. He tossed one of his black zipper sweatshirts to Natasha. It was far too large for her, but he said, "A purple dress? A little easy to recognize."

He took her hand and they raced out of the hotel room, leaving it unlocked. They sprinted down the back staircase of the hotel and out a back door that Natasha hadn't even known existed into a shadowy alley. There, an old, beat-up motorcycle was waiting with two helmets slung over the handlebars. It seemed a little too perfect, like Bane was prepared for and expecting this exact situation. Finally, Natasha cried,

"What did you do, Bane?"

At that exact moment, she heard three quick, successive explosions. One came from behind her, another from her right, and the third from up ahead. They sounded like they were at varying distances, with the second one sounding the closest.

"I simply informed our competitor's political allies that he was attempting to stage another coup," Bane said quickly, as he strapped a helmet onto Natasha's head.

For some bizarre reason, Natasha thought of the airline security demonstrations where the attendants said, '_Please secure your own mask before assisting others.'_

"Why would you do that?" she demanded, her speech affected by the tight-fitting helmet.

"Political instability breeds a heyday for a diamond trade that is… less than polished," Bane informed her, putting on his own seemingly custom-made motorcycle helmet that fit perfectly over his mask. "No regulations, no export oversight. Easier to move product and get it on the market quickly." He slung Natasha quickly onto the motorcycle and then swung his own legs over the saddle. "Hold onto me very tightly," he instructed her, shouting over his shoulder.

"So now what?" Natasha screamed as he kicked the ignition of the bike. "You just started a war?"

"Yes," Bane said simply. "There is nothing better for business than war."

Another explosion detonated, this one so close that the motorcycle underneath Natasha vibrated.

"Get me the fuck out of here!" she yelled into Bane's ear.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, and he squeezed her hands in front of his waist to make sure they were gripping him tightly enough. Then he zoomed off into Freetown's dusty streets, zipping masterfully down straights and through turns until they were on the outskirts of the city.

Then they broke free into jungle, passing villages here and there and whizzing past towering palms and lush greenery on the sandy main road to Makeni. Natasha began to cry as they zoomed past children playing beside the road and she realized these would become the new children of war – the next child soldiers, the next civilian victims, the next orphans – and it was all Bane's fault. She gripped his torso tightly but wanted to pound on his damaged back and make him feel some of the pain he was inflicting on this country. Did he feel nothing for these people as he rocketed down their road on a jalopy of a motorbike? Did he not remember the sight of burning houses, corpses lying in the ditch, children starving in the streets? Natasha had seen it all on the news the last time around; Bane had seen it with his own eyes. He'd been a perpetrator, and now he was doing it again. He was a war criminal, Natasha thought to herself, as she ashamedly felt the wind whip at the rubies dangling from her ears.

Bane didn't stop the motorcycle until they reached a river many miles outside of Freetown. They would have to cross on a raft. Natasha thought Bane would just hold a gun to the poor raft operator's head and tell him to take the boat across the river, but he held out a sum of money for the man to ferry them.

As they stood next to the bike, propped up on its kickstand, Natasha bent over at the waist and made a move to tear off her helmet. Bane stopped her.

"Not until we're out of here," he said firmly. He didn't say another word while they crossed the river, and the only sounds Natasha heard were the twittering of birds, the buzzing of insects, and the raft operator's mournful humming. Murky russet river water lapped at the log sides of the raft as Natasha contemplated the hell that was unfolding back in Freetown. She achingly climbed back on the motorcycle when the reached the other side of the crossing, and as Bane slowly pulled the motorcycle away from the river, she said into his ear,

"You were right. _Everyone_ in his or her right mind would be horrified by what you've done. Including Talia, if she has a soul."

Bane just squeezed her hand and shook his head, speeding up the bike. They rode on until they reached the little town of Yonibana, where Natasha insisted she had to stop to go to the bathroom. Bane wearily pulled the motorcycle over at a canteen, letting Natasha go inside to use the restroom. It wasn't much, just a pit in the ground with a roll of toilet paper and a sheet plastic door, but it was better than peeing on the side of the main road, Natasha thought.

As she was putting herself back together, she perceived the sudden unmistakable rumble of trucks roaring behind her. She heard desperate screams and then automatic gunfire, and then more screaming.

Frantic, Natasha contemplated whether to stay where she was or make a run for it. The decision was made for her when a hole suddenly appeared off to her right and in front of her as a bullet came whizzing through the plastic encasement of the lavatory. Letting out a scream herself, Natasha dashed from the bathroom into the main room of the cantina. People were huddled against the walls, under tables, behind the bar. Natasha looked for a place to hide and, seeing none, decided to make a break for it and try to find Bane.

She ran out the back door of the cantina, tears streaming down her face. It somehow occurred to her to put on the motorcycle helmet she was holding in her hand. She wasn't at all certain that it would help against bullets, but it would give her a certain composure that she wouldn't have bare-faced. As she stood behind the cantina, her back flush against the corrugated steel wall, she began to panic. How would she find Bane in this chaos? Shots were ringing out everywhere; screams could be heard all around. Natasha had no idea whether these were government forces or diamond industry goons, but they seemed to be here for one purpose: intimidation and terror. They were doing a good job of it, Natasha thought fleetingly.

Just as she began to sob into her helmet, wondering how she would escape the massacre, a motorcycle tore around the corner of the cantina. It was Bane, holding the left handlebar of his motorcycle with his hand and gripping his Glock in his right. He stopped the bike right in front of Natasha.

"Come on!" he yelled, beckoning for her to climb on behind him. She scrambled to straddle the motorcycle and slink her arms around Bane's leather jacket, clinging to him for dear life. As he ripped the cycle back onto the main road, Natasha could hear shouts behind them, and the sound of a truck pursuing them. Shots rang out again, these much closer, and Natasha shrieked, ducking her head. Bane swiveled around his shoulder, stopping the bike, and fired three shots. Abruptly, the truck behind them careened into a large tree as the driver slumped down. The truck burst into a blaze, sending flames careening into the sunny sky and singeing foliage. Natasha gasped and squeezed her eyes shut, willing it all to go away.

She kept her eyes sealed and started counting down from one hundred to calm herself. By the time she reached twenty-five, the bike was moving so quickly she felt like she would fling off of it at any moment, and the sounds of screams and shots were far behind them. By the time she reached zero, Bane had slowed the bike slightly and Natasha felt like she could open her eyes.

"I hate you!" she shrieked hysterically into Bane's helmet, feeling not at all calmed by her counting exercise. "Look at what you've done!"

"We'll talk about it on the plane," Bane said calmly, just loudly enough for Natasha to hear. "You don't hate me."

"I do!" Natasha cried, her voice choked with tears. It was another excruciating hour and a half before the motorcycle pulled up to the airport in Makeni, and another half hour before she was sitting angrily on the Gulfstream.

She huddled up in one of the plush leather seats, cowered against the window, and sobbed uncontrollably while Bane finished up "business" with a man on the tarmac. She watched him through the window, firing lasers of loathing at him with her eyes. Finally, he boarded the plane and the door closed, and a few moments later the sound of the engines whirring told her she was about to leave this godforsaken place.

Bane made a move to sit in the seat opposite her, but when he did, Natasha unbuckled her seat belt and moved to the far side of the plane, facing away from him.

"I'm not interested in sitting near you, talking to you, or looking at you right now," she told him furiously. Bane sighed. They were silent for a long moment, until Natasha finally asked, "Where are your men?"

"They're staying to fight," Bane informed her. Natasha scowled at him. "You're safe now," he reasoned.

"I don't give a shit about _me_!" Natasha cried. "What about all of those children? Those innocent people back in Yonibana?"

Bane stared at her. "Yet you are perfectly agreeable with the plan in motion for Gotham?"

"That's different." Natasha shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "That's a quick death."

"Is it? Is not a bullet a quick death? Will there not be suffering and hunger and pain in our plan? You, Natasha, are a complete hypocrite."

Natasha sprang out of her seat just as the plane began to taxi.

"Sit down!" Bane cried. "You'll get hurt."

"What do you care?" she demanded, walking to stand in front of him. "You are _evil_, Bane. Pure, undiluted evil. You look at the face of humanity and you see a vehicle for your sick revenge on a world that turned you into a misshapen demon. You needn't kill me. I'm already in Hell, just by being around you. I know it to be true; it must be, because there's no doubt in my mind that you are the Devil himself. And, _yes_, Bane, just as with everyone else in your pitiful, despicable little life story, you are my biggest regret. I regret everything about us. I am ashamed that I gave you my body. I am mortified to have given you my trust. And, most of all, I have nothing but remorse for lying to you and telling you that I loved you." Natasha hurried to unscrew the earrings that dangled from her ears, and she tossed them angrily into Bane's lap. She dashed through the curtain dividing the seating area and the berthing area and collapsed onto the little bed just as the plane_whooshed_ down the runway and took flight.

She sobbed hysterically into the pillow, her cries emphatic but silent as her back heaved and she gasped for air. She felt the plane pitch and rock as it took its course, and she prayed wordlessly that, somehow, she'd escape Bane when she got back to Gotham.

After the plane had been in the air for about ten minutes, the curtain unzipped slowly, and Bane stepped through into the area where Natasha lay on her stomach on the bed.

"I'm sorry," Natasha said snidely, "Did the 'leave me the fuck alone' part of my message not transmit properly?" She realized how mean she'd sounded after she looked up at Bane and saw that his normally severe eyes appeared desperate and were rimmed with red.

He reached down and put a hand on the side of Natasha's face, squeezing her cheek gently. "You don't love me?"

"That's all you can say?" Natasha demanded. "I accuse you of being a psychopath, a terrorist, a marauder, and all you can ask is whether or not I love you?"

"That's all that matters to me," Bane told her. She could see that his right hand was clenched around the earrings she'd thrown back at him. The stones glittered through the gaps in his fingers. "I've been called far worse things than a monster. I've been called far worse things than misshapen. I've had plenty of people in my life tell me they regretted me. I've got anesthetic flowing through this mask to keep my life's agony at bay. But you telling me that you don't love me…" He scoffed and shook his head, blinking rapidly. "That _is_ painful, Natasha."

Natasha sat up slowly and looked at Bane desperately. "How can I love you?" she pleaded with him. "You're cruel to everyone but me. Even to me, sometimes, Bane, you demonstrate nothing but callousness. Making me dance naked for criminals so you can take their money… plundering my mouth just after stomping a man's skull because you're high on the pleasure of killing… what is wrong with you, honestly?"

"But… I _love_ you, Natasha. I would do _anything_ for you. _Anything_."

She met his eyes again and whispered, "Would you stop this madness?"

He breathed in and out of the mask a few times before he repeated, "I would do _anything_ for you."

In that moment, she knew that he would. She could see it in his gaze, in the stare that pulled her in and held her like a deep breath. She knew he would call off his crazy plan, that he would abandon Talia; that he would run off with her and live a quiet, unobtrusive life in hiding somewhere in the South Pacific and never kill another man as long as he lived. And in that moment, Natasha knew she could never ask that of Bane. She knew that no matter how deeply he loved her, no matter how fiercely protective of her he was, that he was ultimately a predator… and he could not survive without prey. It was his destiny, the destiny of Ra's al Ghul, the destiny of the entire world, to see Bane's plan come to fruition. It was her fate to stay with him until the very end of it all, until the world caved in around them in a blinding flash of burning light that would carry them on to whatever came next.

And in that moment, Natasha had no fear – of that fate or of Bane himself. She heard his words again in her mind: "_I would do __**anything**__ for you,"_ and she felt trust for him swell from deep inside her body. He would die for her, certainly, but more impressively, he would _live_ for her.

Natasha began to cry, and Bane put his hand back to her cheek. "I'm sorry," she murmured as she leaned into his shoulder, feeling the cold of his mask against her ear. "I was scared. I was nervous. I didn't have faith… in you or in the plan."

"But do you love me?" Bane asked quietly, and Natasha saw his hand squeeze the earrings more tightly.

She used his two favorite words to answer. "Of course."

"Say it," he requested. "Please. I want to hear you say it."

"I love you," she crooned, right into his ear. "I love you so much it hurts, inside and out. I love you and I need you. I need you more than I need air, more than I need water."

He started to unbutton her tennis dress, then, and began hiking it up over her hips and over her shoulders, and Natasha gasped as his fingertips grazed over the gentle curve of her breasts.

"I need you," she said again, looking him in the eye. "Please, Bane. I'm so sorry."

She heard the earrings clatter to the floor of the plane as Bane pulled back from her and tore off his flak jacket one buckle at a time. He whipped off the black shirt beneath it and hurriedly untied his boots, kicking them off swiftly. Natasha watched in wonder as he rushed to strip off his clothes, brushing her fingers over the soft material of her embroidered pale pink bra and panties. She swallowed heavily and pulled the tie out of her ponytail, shaking her long hair loose.

They were both dirty, dusty from the motorcycle ride and clammy from the stifling African sun and air, but Bane's tang of salt and sweat only served to rev Natasha's engines. She released a desperate little whimper when he popped off her bra and tossed it aside, baring her breasts to the chilly cabin air. He massaged the tender tissue of her breasts with his large hands, rubbing and squeezing gently and teasing Natasha's nipples with his thumb and forefinger.

She stabbed a hand into her panties while he caressed her, curling her fingers around her entrance and feeling the moistness increase. She tipped her head back and let out a frantic little moan, and she heard Bane's processed voice say,

"What do you want, little girl?" That was what he called her, _little girl_, when he was turned on and feeling dominant. "Ask for it."

So he was going to make her beg. She'd yelled at him and put him down and thrown his ridiculously expensive gift back in his face, and now he was going to make her feel bad about having done all that. He was going to make her _beg_ for it, plead with him to _just fuck her already_, and when he felt satisfied that he was in complete and total control of the situation, he would give her what she wanted and she would _thank_ him for it.

"Please, Bane," Natasha breathed, her words coming quick and shallow, "I want your cock inside of me. I want you to pound me. I want you to spill into me and fill me up." He met her eyes with a look of hunger, and as he tore her panties from her hips, he positioned himself quickly on the stocky little bed.

He knelt back on his haunches, his staff standing at attention. He pulled Natasha onto him so that she, too, was kneeling, with her back to him and her buttocks pulled down against his hips. Bane locked one hand on her breast and the other knifed between her thighs to stimulate her there. She rocked up and down on him, panting and moaning his name. Her head hit the metal of the mask a few times as she thrust, but she didn't care. If anything, it reminded her of his bionic, almost superhuman nature, and the sensation throttled her fiercely. His fingers moved quickly and fervently against her clit, soaked in her succulence and spurred on by her vocal feedback.

When she contracted feverishly around Bane's cock, her nipples growing even harder than they'd been and her thighs tensing around his, Bane groaned in appreciation. He wasn't done with her yet, though.

Bane lay down on his back and bent one of his legs, keeping the other outstretched. Natasha straddled Bane's raised leg, a thigh on either side, and lowered herself onto his cock so that her back was toward him. She grasped his knee and used it for support as she bobbed up and down on him. She squeezed her vulva hard against Bane's rough upper thigh, rubbing and pressing as she massaged his leg and bucked her hips.

Soon after she came again, dissolving into a fit of squeals and convulsions, Bane emptied himself into her and cried out loudly, his voice cracking through the mask.

Natasha was so tired after that that she slept twelve of the remaining hours of the flight. When she woke up, her ears felt heavy. She raised her fingers to her face to find that, as she slept, Bane had put the diamond and ruby earrings back in her ears. She didn't intend on throwing them back at him again any time soon.

* * *

**Here I Stand**

* * *

When they got back to Gotham, it turned out that Bane was right. Talia _was_ angry, but not because of the human collateral damage of the civil war Bane had initiated. She was upset because she felt Bane had potentially endangered the long-term viability of Daggett's mines, and could have angered the businessman. This led to many heated debates between Talia and Bane in Bane's office, most of which ended with Talia storming down the concrete hallway in her cashmere overcoat.

Natasha didn't know how Daggett reacted to the war in Sierra Leone, because his ownership of the mines there was not public knowledge. She did know that Bane had managed to anger the American President, the delegates of the United Nations, various stockholders of assorted multi-national corporations, and human rights organizations. She watched the news in agony as, every night, new horrors emerged from Africa. She just had to keep telling herself that it was all part of the plan, and that the plan was the product of the mind of a genius.

What was not part of the plan was Natasha missing her period. That was most definitely not part of the plan.

Halfway through March, Natasha realized she was so late on her cycle that it could really only mean one thing. She'd been on a birth control pill prescribed by Dr. Crane, but there had admittedly been a few days during the Great African Crisis when she'd forgotten to take it.

Nervously, Natasha administered an at-home pregnancy test, and when that came back positive, she went to the Minute Clinic at CVS for a more definitive test. That, too, came back positive. Natasha felt like she couldn't return to the bunker while a hot mess of tears and nerves, so she went to Talia's penthouse.

Talia stared at Natasha like she had three heads when Natasha told her she was pregnant with Bane's child.

"What did he say?" Talia asked.

"I haven't told him," Natasha admitted.

"Well, don't you think that would be a good idea?"

"No," Natasha insisted. "He'll send me away."

Talia declared that that was up to Bane, and she shooed Natasha out the door, making her promise to tell Bane the news the second she got back to the bunker.

There was strange music coming out of Bane's office – "Irene" by Finnish singer Sofia Jannok. Scrunching her brow in confusion, Natasha knocked on the door four times before entering the room, and the music muted.

"Hello," Bane said melodiously. He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his chest. "What can I do for you?"

Natasha looked at him longingly and pined over his rippling arm muscles, his broad chest, his eyes crinkled with happiness at seeing her. Would she ever touch him, kiss him, _speak_ to him again… after she gave him this news?

She wordlessly handed him a folded sheet of paper, which he opened and examined silently. On the paper were the results of the test from the pharmacy. The paper spelled out in no uncertain terms that the results of the pregnancy test were positive.

Bane slowly folded the paper back into quarters and tucked it into his desk drawer. He put his palms flat on his desk and raised his gaze to Natasha. She searched his eyes for emotion, for meaning, for some indication of what he was going to say… but she had precisely no idea what Bane was feeling.

Bane's eyes held a look of bewilderment and another expression Natasha could not measure. She felt tears rising and wrung her hands anxiously.

"I'm sorry, Bane," she said distraughtly. "So sorry."

He pushed himself off the desk and strode quickly over to stand in front of her, his eyes meeting hers in an intense gaze.

"Sorry?" he repeated, his voice soft. He put his hands on Natasha's waist and tipped his head forward so the strap between his eyes rested on her forehead. "Sorry?"

He reached up to unclip the fasteners of his mask and quickly removed the apparatus, tossing it back onto his desk. He turned back to face Natasha, and she braced herself for the look on his face.

He was grinning, so widely that he seemed to radiate sunshine. He took one hand and pulled Natasha's face up to his to kiss her, and his other hand drifted between them to rest gently on her stomach. He pulled her into him with his lips; the citrus tang of his mouth was so alluring Natasha could hardly stand it. She giggled into his kiss, planting her hands on his cheeks and mildly stroking the spots where the mask had rubbed smooth.

"Thank you," Bane murmured into her lips, his breath heavy and warm. He pulled back and reached for his mask, strapping it back onto his head. His eyes continued to smile.

"So, you're not mad?" Natasha said disbelievingly. "You're not angry with me?"

"Natasha," he told her, cupping her cheek with a trembling hand, "no man has ever been more happy about a child than I am in this moment."

"I need to pray," Natasha said suddenly.

She knew what she was asking – for God's assistance in waging a holy war against the civilians of Gotham City. In Bane's mind, she knew, this undertaking was not a sacred crusade. For Natasha, it had to be. It was the only way she could justify it in her soul.

It was March. Bane had told her that his scheme would be unveiled to Gotham in September, and that it would take five months for the bomb to degrade and detonate after that. That gave her eleven months until death, until the Reckoning. She was, by her own calculation, four weeks pregnant. She'd likely deliver in November, if all went according to plan. That gave her several months to spare… plenty of time to get her child out of the city.

In a strange way, Natasha viewed her child as a Christ-like figure of sorts. Nowhere near as powerful or righteous as Jesus himself, perhaps, but similar in spirit. For, as she perceived it, Bane would die a martyr, and this child would be his life carried on in another form. She would bear Bane's heir and successor to the world, sending that descendant off to safety so the parents could perish together in a holy flame. She would be a sacred vessel for a most sacrosanct consignment.

Bane spent the next week in a joyful mood, seemingly exultant in every encounter he had with any person, noteworthy or insignificant, around the bunker and beyond.

One day, Talia came to visit Natasha, bringing her a gift basket full of home spa toys: a pedicure kit, a gel mask, a plush robe, a jar of clay mask, and a fresh sprig of lavender.

"You should pamper yourself," Talia informed Natasha, as the latter pawed through the gifts thankfully. "You have made Bane more happy than I've ever seen him in my entire life."

Natasha looked at Talia gratefully. "Thank you," she said, "for not being angry."

"How could I be angry?" Talia demanded. "It was never my destiny to be the mother of Bane's children. It was my vocation to be a fighter, a soldier for him… and to be his friend. He was there for me when most I needed him. Now I can do the same. Please, Natasha… before the baby is born, you must leave Gotham. You must go away and raise the child for Bane. No one else will be able to bring that person up in his image. His legacy will die with him, with you, with me, and it will all be for nothing. Go away from here before he shuts the city in. There will be no escape once the Revolution is begun. You can stay for a few months more, to spend time with him, but then, _please_, Natasha, for his sake… save yourself with your child."

Natasha gaped wordlessly at Bane's comrade. "Did Bane ask you to tell me this?" she inquired. "Does he want me to leave?"

"This is my idea," Talia admitted. "It has nothing to do with jealousy. I promise, Natasha. I am thinking only of his progeny and his inheritance, and the role you play in that. I know you are in love, and I cherish your love for him almost as much as he does. I see what it's done to him – _for_ him – and I see what's become of him since he learned his offspring grows in your womb."

Natasha bit her lip. "I can't leave him to die here alone."

"I will be by his side," Talia promised, "not in your stead, but in your honor. I have gladly vowed to lay down my life for his vision. I know you have done the same. But the more principled thing to do, the more _important _thing to do, is to take his child to live its life in the arms of its mother. You have a choice, Natasha. No one is going to force to you go any more than anyone is forcing you to stay. But I _beg_ of you to be the parent to this infant than Bane cannot be. You know as well as I that in his martyrdom, his name will live forever. It is up to you to ensure that his blood lives forever, as well."

Natasha nodded her understanding slowly. So she would have to flee. Would she tell Bane that that was her plan? Not yet, she decided. He might send her away sooner than she wanted. He might agree with Talia's idea and just send her away now. So she wouldn't tell him of her plan to leave. Not yet.

Talia went home then, leaving Natasha alone in her concrete room. Talia opened her leather-bound journal and pulled out a pen.

"_I bear a great and sacred fruit upon the boughs of my tree. That sapling grows until the world submits on bended knee."_

The next morning, Natasha awoke in Bane's bed sniffling and whimpering. She did not at first recognize the reason for her tears, until she thawed into consciousness and felt the searing discomfort.

Her lower back, her abdomen, her pelvis… all were radiating with scorching pain. Her right shoulder, too, ached like it was dislocated. She felt moisture between her legs and, terrified, dipped her fingers beneath the sheets in the darkness. When she felt the warm tackiness there, the panic set in quickly.

"Bane," she said, but her voice cracked and was softer than she'd intended. He grunted quietly in his sleep and reached back to take her hand in his. "Bane!" Natasha cried again, this time her voice louder and stronger.

He startled awake then, reaching instantly for the lamp beside the bed to bathe them in light. He sat up and looked at Natasha and, seeing the horror on her face as she stared at his hand, glanced down. His eyes locked on the blood that had transferred from her hand to his.

"No," he moaned, clenching his bloody fist and pounding the sheet. "No, Natasha, no."

"I'm in so much pain," she keened, clutching hard at her gut. She reached out her hand toward Bane. "Help me."

"I'm going to get a doctor," Bane announced, practically jumping from the bed and throwing on clothes as quickly as he could.

"No, Bane," Natasha insisted weakly as he tied his boots, "I need to go to the hospital."

"I can't take you there," Bane choked, looking at her with red-rimmed eyes.

"Then someone else has to," she told him. "I feel like I'm going to -"

"Don't you dare say it, Natasha!" Bane growled angrily at her. Absently, Natasha wondered at how frightened he was of the prospect of her death. Was it only acceptable to him for her to die beside him, in a righteous inferno? Not here, though, not like this – not in a pool of blood in his bed while his child wilted within her.

Natasha could feel her heart racing, beating harder and faster than she'd ever felt it work. Her breath, too, quickened and was shallow. She felt her skin sheened with sweat and she squirmed restlessly in the bed. She could still sense that blood was escaping her, but not leaking from her womb onto the bed. Rather, she felt that she was bleeding inside her own body, flooding her own tissues with blood while she languished.

She felt Bane's fingers on her wrist, getting her pulse, and saw the panicked look in his eye at the result.

"That's it," he murmured, "I don't care who sees. We're going to the emergency room. I'm not a wanted man in Gotham. Not yet. You're pale as a ghost and I can barely feel your heartbeat. I will not lose you."

He gathered her up in his arms, swaddling her in a gray flannel blanket that was folded at the foot of the bed. She pulled herself against him, tucking her head against his chest and moaning softly into his shirt, and then all faded to black.

When she awoke, Natasha heard a slow, steady _beep-beep-beep_ and a hushed voice talking near her. Blinded by the light above her, she shut her eyes and listened.

"Natasha is in quite an advanced state of hypovolemic shock. She could slip into a coma at any moment. She needs a very large amount of transfused blood. We've given her everything we can spare in supply of O-negative emergency red cells and AB plasma, but our bank is extremely short on stock of her type."

"Then take my blood." Natasha perceived Bane's voice. It was anxious and breathless, and, most strangely, she noted, not processed or mechanical. "She's A-positive, is she not? I'm A-negative. I can give her red cells and plasma. Hook me up to her. Now."

"We would need her consent to give her blood that's not from the bank…"

"I consent," Natasha croaked from the bed. The voices were silent for a moment, then Bane said,

"Do it, doctor."

There was a flurry of movement then as Natasha cracked her eyes and saw a nurse and the doctor traveling quickly around her with various medical implements in hand. Then she heard the scraping of a chair on the floor and saw Bane sidle up beside the bed. Her vision was hazy, blurry, but she could see his face haloed by the fluorescent light. His mask was off, and she could perceive in his eyes a depth of pain both mental and physical that she'd never witnessed before.

Then his arm was propped up on the bed and there was a tube flowing from him to her, with blood soon coursing from his veins into hers.

"I'll be back soon," the doctor said, and he called, "Nurse Pawlucky? If you'd come with me, please."

When they'd gone and the room was quiet except for the beeping of machines, Natasha looked wearily at Bane and murmured, "Put your mask back on."

He shook his head. "It would only complicate this situation to have the doctor be afraid of me."

"Bane," she said firmly, "I can see your pain. It's written on your face. Please, for me, if you love me, put the mask back on."

He stared at her for a moment and then reached next to him, pulling the apparatus over his head and strapping it on. The relief with which he inhaled his anesthesia confirmed to Natasha that he needed to be wearing it.

"How long did you have it off?" Natasha asked.

"I don't know. Forty-five minutes?" he guessed.

"Too long," whispered Natasha, feeling abruptly sleepy.

"How about _your_ pain?" Bane asked, petting her hair and brushing his fingers across her cheek.

"Gone," she promised. Then, remembering why she was here, she sobbed, "Like our child."

"It's not just a miscarriage, Natasha," Bane informed her wearily. "You've had an ectopic pregnancy. The fertilized egg implanted in your Fallopian tube instead of your uterus. It ruptured, and you've had severe internal bleeding."

"Are they going to operate on me?" Natasha asked anxiously. "They can do it laproscopically, right? They don't have to cut me open?"

"They want to go in and take out the entire Fallopian tube," Bane informed her. It's called a salpingectomy. They're preparing an operating theatre now."

Natasha began weeping uncontrollably then, not out of fear but out of grief. Her baby was gone, dead and gone, and never had any chance of living at all. There was nothing she could have done. She knew that. The child never had the opportunity to grow and thrive within her. Was she cursed? Was this her punishment for being with Bane, for letting him fill her with his wicked seed? Where was God now, in this hellish nightmare? She cried out piteously, gripping the cotton blanket strewn across her failing body and letting out a keen full of heartache and despair.

Bane, too, was crying, more profusely than she'd ever seen him do. Tears flowed from his typically austere eyes and coursed over the cold metal of his mask. The tears cascaded from the severe device and tumbled pitifully onto the white sheet of Natasha's bed. Bane took one hand and swiped helplessly at his eyes, ostensibly willing the tears unsuccessfully away. His other hand reached for Natasha's and clasped it tightly – almost too tightly, she thought faintly. He seemed to be clutching onto her for fear that if he let her go, she would stagger off into the abyss of death and leave him forever. She gripped his fingers as snugly as her anemic body would let her do, stroking his palm with her quivering thumb. She shushed him pacifyingly, reaching her free hand to sweep a heavy tear from his temple.

"_And when Death comes for me, in darkness and shadow, I will put up mine hands and serenely say unto Him: 'This is not thy day, mine enemy. I banish thee until I call upon thee of mine own will. Take me not.'"_

Her speech was but an impassioned whisper as she recited words she'd written weeks before, while terrified in Africa. Still, they seemed to give Bane some measure of comfort, as his sobbing abated and he met her eyes mournfully.

"Do _not_ leave me," he begged, his cracked voice heartbreaking. "I love you _too much_, Natasha."

"I'm so sorry about the baby," she sobbed. "I have failed you."

"Excuse me?" he said disbelievingly. "You have failed no one, Natasha. You will only fail me if you leave me alone in this cruel, painful world."

The doctor chose that inopportune moment to walk back into the hospital room, and this time he was towing more nurses. They all stared anxiously at Bane's mask, but said nothing. Bane turned his face away, ashamed to be crying, and sniffed once.

"Miss Lemov, we are ready to take you into surgery now," the doctor told her. Natasha nodded apprehensively, feeling suddenly weak despite the flow of Bane's blood into her body.

"We can collect more of your blood to give her post-operatively," the doctor said to Bane, and Bane nodded enthusiastically.

Everything from there was a blur as Natasha was disconnected from her blood source and loaded onto a gurney. She was wheeled quickly down a brightly lit hallway, pulled backward down the corridor. She could see Bane following quickly behind. As she was pulled through double doors, the doctor gestured to Bane to stay where he was.

"Please stay in the waiting room, sir," the doctor said politely. "We will send someone out with updates for you."

"Is she going to be all right or not?" Bane demanded, and the doctor simply said,

"We're going to do everything we can."

Bane's eyes did not leave Natasha's until the double doors shut beyond her. In those eyes, she could see nothing but fear and panic, and, worst of all, pain.

"Unfortunately, the surgery did not go exactly as planned."

Natasha stared at the doctor and breathed slowly through the oxygen mask covering her nose and mouth.

"What do you mean?" Her voice was muffled by the plastic.

The surgeon sighed and looked at her sympathetically. "Your hemorrhaging was so severe that a simple removal of the Fallopian tube proved to be not only insufficient, but essentially ineffective against the bleeding."

Natasha put her hands on her lower abdomen, where she could feel a thick bandage covering a large swath of flesh. "What did you do to me?" she pressed.

"A partial hysterectomy was required," the doctor informed her. "We had to remove your Fallopian tubes as well as your uterus."

Natasha's eyes blistered and she felt rage boil up through her veins. "You made it so I can never even _try_ to have another child," she hissed.

"It was a necessary evil," the doctor promised, biting his lip apologetically. "It saved your life."

"To what end?" Natasha demanded. "I don't even feel like a woman anymore."

"For what it's worth, you still have your ovaries," the doctor assured her. "You could have an egg extracted and fertilized and implanted into a surrogate's womb if you wanted a biological child. It was this, or bleed to death, Miss Lemov."

Natasha swiped angrily at the tears tumbling down her cheeks and sniffed, "I want to see… my boyfriend." She avoided saying his name, in case his veil of secrecy was still in effect.

"Of course. I'll bring him in now," the doctor said soothingly, and he rose from his bedside chair to go open the door of the recovery room. He beckoned into the hallway, and within a brief moment, Bane's hulking, masked form appeared in the doorway. The look of concern in his eyes was overwashed with one of relief when he saw Natasha sitting up in the hospital bed, awake and alert.

He rushed to her side, taking her hand in both of his and pressing it to the icy metal of his mask. He shut his eyes and sighed deeply, his breath shaking as he released it.

"Does he know…?" Natasha started to ask the doctor, jerking her head toward Bane, and the doctor nodded consolingly.

"Of course. We kept him updated throughout the procedure."

Natasha looked over to Bane and said tearfully, "I'm sorry."

"Don't you dare apologize," he said forcefully. He turned to the doctor. "For how long will she have pain?"

"The recovery process for a hysterectomy is long and tiring, I'm afraid," the doctor admitted. "There will be at least some degree of pain in the area, requiring at least over-the-counter meds, for about four months. For that time, daily activities will be physically limited. No sexual intercourse for _at least_ six weeks," he cautioned, looking at Bane when he said it, "as that could lead to infection, ripped internal stitches, or worse."

_Worse?_ Natasha found herself asking within her mind, but she said nothing.

"I can discuss the long-term physical effects of the procedure with you in private," the doctor said to Natasha awkwardly, but Natasha insisted,

"There's nothing to hide."

The doctor cleared his throat and said, "You might – you probably will – experience severely reduced vaginal lubrication as a result of the surgery. No more uterine orgasms, obviously. Possible urinary incontinence. Eighty percent of women disclose a decreased sex drive."

Natasha nodded, lowering her head and feeling the oxygen mask touch her chest.

"When do I get to go… home?" she asked, acknowledging for the first time that she _lived_ in the bunker.

"Three to five days," the doctor told her. "You'll need physical exams at two, four, and six weeks post-operation." He sighed again. "That's all I've got for now. I'll leave you two to talk."

He rose and exited the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.

"Is this your blood?" Natasha asked Bane, gesturing up to the plastic bag feeding into her IV.

He nodded wordlessly. "I can't even tell you," he began, "how petrified I was. I've never been so scared in my whole life. Not when I watched Talia make that leap. Not when I was being torn to shreds by the horde. Never."

Natasha chewed on her lip and said gently, "You should go."

"Why?" He looked at her with hurt in his eyes, pained by her suggestion.

"You shouldn't linger here, arousing suspicion and curiosity. You should go home and wait for me. I'll be there in a few days."

"I'm not leaving you," he swore. "They said I could stay the night, here, and I -"

"Bane. You should go home." Natasha squeezed his fingers and nodded solemnly. "Please."

"You don't want me here," he suspected, sounding offended.

"I've just been told that my womanhood has been removed and that I can not have another child," she reminded him. "I think I just want to be alone right now."

She patted his arm with her free hand and sighed. Wordlessly, Bane took a deep breath through his mask and rose from his chair. He walked very slowly to the door, and turned back to Natasha before he opened it.

"I love you very much," he mumbled, and then he was gone.

After he'd left, Natasha bawled until she ran out of tears. She cried for the child that had died, for the children that would never be. She wept for Bane, for the pain she'd made him feel. And, most of all, she sobbed for the fact that a part of her body had been taken from her, leaving her less than whole.

The next four days were agony. Physically, Natasha had never felt such torture as she felt from her healing stitches and her internal cramping. Mentally, being so alone was draining and dull. On the day that she was told she could go home, she cried again, this time out of relief and a feeling of liberation.

She called Bane from her cell phone, and anxiously waited through three rings to hear his voice for the first time in days.

"Natasha?" He sounded, if nothing else, thankful to be receiving a call from her.

"Hello," she said shyly. "They… the doctors… they said I can go home now."

"Right this minute?" His voice seemed strange, detached and garbled, and Natasha scrunched her brow.

"Yes," she confirmed. "As soon as you can get here."

"I'll send somebody right away."

"You're not coming yourself?" Natasha challenged him, intensely disappointed.

"I'm… not exactly in a state to be driving right now," he said, and Natasha realized that he was drunk, or high, or both, and that was why his words were rushed and blurry. "I'm sorry, Natasha. I'm anxious to see you."

"Sure." The doubt and disappointment in Natasha's response was obvious. How could she blame him, though? He'd lost his chance at progeny, in a most ferocious fashion, and then Natasha had asked him to leave when he'd tried to be there for her. How could it surprise anyone that his response would be to turn to chemicals and drugs to pacify his anger and hurt and soothe his mind? That was his way, wasn't it, to medicate away sorrow and grief?

"Someone will be there very soon," he promised, sounding like he regretted his stoned state as much as Natasha did. "I'll see you when you get here. I hope… I hope you're feeling better."

There was a beep then, as the call disconnected, and Natasha lowered her phone to her lap sadly. He hadn't told her that he loved her before he'd hung up. He had only wished her well. His tone had a stiff kind of formal finality to it, as if the demise of their barely-conceived child was the death-knell for their entire relationship.

Natasha dissolved into depressed tears as she waited for the nurse to come get her and take her out to the discharge area. At least, she thought to herself as she waited for her ride, Bane had had the common decency to not try and drive her home while he was hopped up on something. At least he'd delegated her safety to an ostensibly sober caretaker.

The man who came to pick her up was none other than Dr. Jonathan Crane. He arrived in a silver Volvo and helped her carefully into the front seat. While they drove to the parking garage outside the subway station where one could enter the bunker, Natasha asked quietly,

"How's Bane holding up?"

Dr. Crane glanced fleetingly at her, flicking his eyes from and then back onto the road.

"Not well," he admitted with a sigh. "He's turned to drugs, and not the ones I've tried prescribing him for depression and anxiety."

"What drugs?" Natasha steeled herself.

"Anything he can get his hands on. Pills I didn't recognize. Bath salts. Today, he shot up. Methamphetamine, I think. He's desperate."

"He'll turn himself into a sniveling addict if he's not careful," Natasha noted sadly, tipping her head against the car window.

"He needs to see you," Dr. Crane informed her. "He'll feel much better once he lays eyes on you, I believe."

"It's all my fault," Natasha lamented. "I told him to leave."

"None of this is your fault."

Natasha rode the dark lift down into the bowels of the bunker with a great sense of foreboding. What – who - would she see when she met Bane again? Would he hug her? Slap her? Even recognize her?

Dr. Crane walked Natasha to her own room, but Natasha stopped outside the door. "I really want to see him," she told the psychiatrist.

He shook his head. "I don't think that's a good idea, Natasha. Let him sleep it off. He'll sober up now that you're here, and you can see him tomorrow."

"I want to see him _now_."

Dr. Crane sighed and was silent for a moment, then nodded gently. He guided Natasha by her shoulder to the door of Bane's bedroom and knocked four times.

The door flung open quickly, and Bane stood in the threshold. When he saw Natasha, he made a move like he was going to sweep her into his arms. When she took a cautious step back, he retreated.

"Safe and sound," Dr. Crane reported, nodding toward Natasha. Bane took her shoulder in his hand and drew her toward him, cradling her gently against his chest. Beneath his shirt, Natasha could hear his heart positively racing. She wondered if that was from his excitement to see her, the drugs, or possibly both. When Natasha looked over her shoulder, Dr. Crane was gone. Bane backed into the bedroom, pulling Natasha with him.

Bane's laptop was sitting open on his bed, and Skrillex music was blasting from it. An odd choice, Natasha thought, for a person who was allegedly descended into grief.

He guided them to the leather couch and sat down, tugging Natasha down beside him. The look in his eye was sorrowful, yet agitated. Natasha cleared her throat.

"I'm sorry I sent you away," she said over the din of the music. "I should have let you stay and grieve your child instead of banishing you."

"I just wanted to love you the way you should be loved," Bane confessed mournfully. "Instead, I came home and went on a four-day bender of every fucking chemical I could lay my paws on." He anxiously rubbed his hand over his head. "I can't even jack off."

"I should think not, not with everything you've taken," Natasha sighed. "You haven't asked me how I'm feeling. You're more concerned about your masturbation abilities."

Bane shook his head quickly as if ridding himself of an insect infestation. "Of course!" he exclaimed. "Are you much better?"

Natasha put her lips in a straight line. "Much. Thank you for asking," she said tightly.

"I'm sorry; I'm just… a little scatterbrained…" Bane rose and walked over to the concrete wall, staring at it intently.

"I don't want you taking any more drugs," Natasha informed him angrily.

"I don't know what else to do," Bane lamented.

"Just love me… the way I should be loved." She echoed his words. "And we'll heal – together." She slowly, meticulously pulled herself from the couch to stand behind him, placing her hands on his disfigured back. She traced his long, thick scars through the thin fabric of his shirt, and he rolled his neck at the sensation of her fingers coursing over him.

"I never understood you, because I never knew what it meant to be broken," Natasha said softly. "Now I do. Now I know what it is to have part of you torn away. Now I know what it is to feel exposed and displayed to the world in all of your hideous imperfection. Now I know what it is to hurt… so badly you think you'll never, ever be fixed and you'll never breathe or walk again. Now I know what it is to bear a burden that time will not soothe, a pain that no treatment can mitigate. Now I know what it is to feel anger and hatred at the root of your soul, odium and wrath so powerful they threaten to eat you alive. Now I know, Bane… I know it all, and I'm so, so sorry that I did not recognize the depth of your anguish. Mine, I know, but scratches the surface of yours, and it's so terrible I can hardly stand it. You've lived with your torment for decades; mine is just beginning. So don't show me this face. Don't show me that the way to cope with my fear and anger and pain is by drugging myself into oblivion. Show me the strength I know you possess. Show me the man behind your mask."

Bane slowly turned to her, his movements deliberate and measured but his eyes still feverish. "I'm not as strong as you credit me," he declared. "I have found that out over the last four days. I came home and I cried like a child, though when _I_was a child I did not abide tears. I hadn't the time, or the luxury, of crying – not since the day I came writhing and screaming from my mother's body. No, Natasha, not until I felt not only the fear of your demise but also the sting of your rejection did I weep like a baby. You have more clout than you believe. You have, whether you've tried or not, brought a monster to his knees. Here I genuflect before your power, Natasha, ruined and withered and lost. Drowning in the waves of a tempest more fearsome than any come before. Pain – yes, I know it well. Pain is something of my ally, now, thanks to you. Anger – indeed, we are old friends. Shame – the cloak beneath which I have languished for years. And, yes, even grief – I came to acquaint myself with the emotion the day Talia left me and disappeared into the light. But heartache… like this… the loss of a child, the rip and tug at my soul as I watched you deteriorate in a hospital, the blow of your dismissal… these things corrode humanity more effectively and thoroughly than anything else. So judge me not for my desperation. Here I stand – the most lowly, piteous, pathetic, wretched shell of a man that was ever damned to wander the realm of the living."

There were tears staining Natasha's cheeks now, as she reached up to touch Bane's damaged jaw. She turned away from him, unable to look him in the eye, and meandered over to the bed. She pushed the 'mute' button on his laptop, and the little concrete room was suddenly cloaked in silence, except for the constant hiss of Bane's breathing and Natasha's quiet little hiccups as she cried.


End file.
